This week we welcome Sajal Sarkar, an artist of the Indian diaspora who works in the mediums of drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Sarkar studied drawing and painting as an undergraduate at the Government College of Art and Craft, the University of Calcutta in 1989, followed by a degree in printmaking from the faculty of fine arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India.
His work has earned several awards including from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Canada, in 1996 and 2005; a senior research fellowship from the Cultural Ministry of India in 2011-12; and in 2021 he received the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation grant.
Sarkar has shown his work in numerous solo and group shows including Aicon Gallery in New York City. In 2016, he moved to the United States and taught with the Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Summit. Presently, he is associated with DuCret Center of Arts, Plainfield, New Jersey.
Sarkar has presented several artist’s talks including at the University of Connecticut; East Connecticut State University in 2021; in the department of art and department of sociology, World University of Design, Haryana, India. His work has been written about in Art Review City (NYC); Art Soul Life magazine and Art India Magazine, both in India. Sarkar’s works are included in the collections of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery of Modern Art, India, and Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, India, along with several private collections internationally. Sarkar presently lives and works in New Jersey and has a studio at MANA Contemporary in Jersey City.
“I deeply believe that my work should be relevant to the here and now. Amidst the current toxic political climate around the world, where homogeneous notions of home and community are being militantly asserted as an excuse to exclude, even persecute those who do not fit into such visions, uncertainty about belonging to an actual place has driven me to forge a conceptual space in my work over the last few years.
In this invented space, “home” itself emerges as an abstraction, a malleable idea. Grounded in that realization, my deep concern for human life and spirit in the present political context has helped me redefine the language of my art. I feel it provides infinite room for reflection and meditation on the nature and meaning of humanity.”
See more of Sarkar’s work on his website and Instagram page.
Beautiful works with sensitive colour palette! A deep cognition of artist plays a vital role in this series of works !
Outstanding work Sajal I am very happy. Felling proud of you ❤️
I understand that how much you are attached with your art-form…. , l am proud of you.