Kisory Roy was trained as an academic painter under teachers like Mukul Dey and J.P Gangooly at the Government School of Art. Composed in the traditional style of portraiture, this self-portrait surprises the viewer’s expectations by introducing the spectral face of a famine victim in the background. Painted at the height of the Bengal Famine of 1943, the artist appears—brush and palette in hand—in a conventional pose. But his meditative eyes look into the distance, his right-hand is frozen mid-air in hesitation, creating the effect of arrested motion as if, just when he was about to paint himself, he was haunted by the face of an emaciated woman. The painting seems to ask if conventional forms of art are sufficient when the world it seeks to represent changes so devastatingly.
Kisory Roy
Art and Famine (Self Portrait)
1944
Oil on canvas
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Kisory Roy
Art and Famine (Self Portrait)
1944
Oil on canvas
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