Musician Debajyoti Mishra turns painter

Kolkata: Going back to his childhood love, music composer Debajyoti Mishra, who has worked in many Hindi and Bengali films like "Bazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa" and "Autograph", has now turned into a painter. Drawn during the last two years, his collection of 40 paintings, titled "Rhythm & Colours" was thrown open to the public at the ICCR gallery here yesterday and would be open till Tuesday. Deeply influenced by Rabindranath Tagore, who has been his all time inspiration both in art and music, Mishra aims to strike a chord with the masses through his simple depiction of national identity, popular culture and fragments from everyday life. Painting enthusiasts describe his work as something akin to water, which sometimes flows still, sometimes restless but always boundless, producing a soothing effect. A self-taught artist, Mishra said he never had formal training in art. "But it remains my childhood love," says the composer of such films as "Raincoat", "Chokher Bali" and the 2004 Hollywood film "Shadows of Time". Painter Jogen Chowdhury, who motivated him to put up the sale-cum-exhibition, says, "Debyajyoti Mishra`s paintings possess a rhythmic pattern and a certain musical quality. Music becomes eternal when it bridges the gap between the finite and the infinite. His paintings too have this quality." Influenced by the impressionist style and the art works of European masters like Henri Matisse and Pablo Piccasso, Mishra has used digital ink, acrylic and pastel to give wings to his ideas. Among the exhibits are "Bangobala" (The Lady of Pabna) depicting the Partition misery, the portrait of Bismillah Khan, bathing beauties in bold hues of red and "Waiting for my Master", a tribute to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. The exhibition is curated by Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya. PTI