Untitled (A Dry Feast)

A delightful, if cheeky, trompe l’oeil, Hemen Mazumdar gives us here a group of cats that seems to have overturned a painting from the easel, attracted to the lobsters it purports to have depicted. Or have they upset the composition being used by the artist to create his painting? The fallen paints and brushes are evidence of feline crime, and the naturalistic depiction is a tribute to one of Bengal’s greatest painters in the realistic tradition. The paintings on a wall behind the easel allude to its location in the artist’s studio.