Robin Mondal is an artist who uses art to express his reaction to what he is witnessing. In many ways such inner feelings acquire universal connotations as what one comes across in real life is in other way story of the world. His works presents to us with the dark sides of human life.
Born and educated in Kolkata, Robin had to face with poverty and human suffering. He has demonstrated with ease the suffering of people working in Howrah and Kolkata. It is pertinent to mention that grim faces depicted by him in his works showcase the workers, who were exploited by industrial houses for production. He was witness to a milieu where rich has it all and the poor were becoming poorer. He could hardly make any difference to the lives of the oppressed people, so he decided to bring it on the canvas in such a way that a personal chronicle could acquire universal color.
For Mondal art was the means to communicate his feelings to us. He has used all his energies to make it lively and meaningful. Not only he came across the daily stumbling of human lives but he was surprised at the greed of a section of society. He was unhappy to see how human beings could stoop to exploit fellow people for their own comfort and profit. The emergence of market fundamentalism with its disregard to human lives bothered him. His works show the plight of working class men and women of Howrah and Kolkatta.
Though he got art education in Bengal and was under the influence of Bengal school of art, he was also inspired by different schools of Indian art. The stamp of folk and tribal art on his work is obvious. Some of his works also resemble to tribal deities and other goddesses. In 1940s there was an exhibition of French artists in Kolkata and Robin was also benefited by interacting with artists. Jamini Roy and Tagore also left lasting impressions on his works. His technique and style are different with subject.
He has used sketches, drawings and paintings to convey his ideas to us through figures. He has experimented with watercolor, wax, ink, oil and acrylic to give varied look. In this way he is a versatile artist. Robin has used dark pigments of black, red and moss of green with use of charcoal to present haunting images. Exaggerations, distortions at some places have given way to destruction of the form. His women, heads, faces, deities, queens and landscapes represent the suffering of human beings. The fall of man and quest for complete man has always interested philosophers of east and west for generations.
Mondal’s works showcases the descent of Man. His art uses symbols to bring his reaction to realism. So human beings in his work acquire a different shape. This shape resembles demon, devil and even beast at some places. The bodies of human beings are distorted and stretched out of proportion. Faces have narrow forehead, wrinkles and in some mouth is wide open showing teeth. They are faces of pain, sorrow, and anger. Yet they have hope in their eyes and not ready to give up. The emotions in his works also bring moral decline to the fore with his paintings and sketches of brothels and lovers, His depiction of queens represent isolation, which we witness in our lives.
In this painting Robin is showing women at work. Though, we can clearly see two women working, we are not able to decipher the rest. That is Robin. He uses his imagination and feelings to react to any subject. Just two women are working various ideas come to their mind which are not clear and they are confused.
His art is not beautiful. But his works are communicating to the viewer that our urban existence is modern day jungle. Robin’s works are not only meant for decoration but they are relevance to our lives.
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