Call of the Jungle

One of the artworks on display.

At Art District XIII, Lado Sarai, 39-year­old Gopal Samantray’s exhibition titled “The Enigma of a New Landscape” stirs simultaneous feelings of admiration and trepidation as one looks at the dichotomy of wild animals in urban surroundings. The anxiety of a changing world and depleting wildlife is provoked in every piece of work. For his third solo, the Delhi-based artist has worked with animal figures, forcing the viewers to dwell upon the degrading natural forests and leaving one uneasy.

One of the 23 works on display shows a tiger against a barbed wire with light bulbs, while another one has juxtaposed a zebra against city lights. Samantray says he has spent 10 years working on the show. “It is to convey a global message. I am not targeting a city or a country but the entire world,” he says. The abundance of tigers and zebras in his works, he says, is there for a reason. “Zebra is symbolic of universality. There is also a certain beauty in it and I wish to make it the mark of my work. The tiger, on the other hand, is endangered and thus crucial to my work. I am not simply a wildlife painter; I have a purpose and I want everyone to understand it,” he adds.

Coming from Adhanga, a village in Odisha, the artist began his journey at a very young age. “Odisha is rich in fauna and I have had a great love for wildlife since my childhood. I have spent a lot of time visiting forests and it is a personal depiction of my love for nature,” he says. After completing his higher studies in Bhubaneshwar, he formally began his practice in 1997, leaving his home in 2006 for Delhi. The forests and the beasts, however, have remained with him. “In this changing world, chaos has erupted as a result of urbanisation and deforestation. The core theme of my art collection is human encroachment that has led to depletion of the habitat of wild animals,” he says. “For me, it is the depiction of a mystery bordering on unpredictability, both of my art as well as the future of our world. Both are susceptible to change. A balance has to be maintained,” says Samantray, who has added sculptures in his show for the first time.