Mohit Mahato says, “I want people to rest and enjoy my show. There is no life -changing message that I am trying to express with my work. It is about the joy of making and sharing that happiness with others.”
Artists from Jamshedpur are hosting their first single show in Gallery Sumukh. When he was in Higher Secondary School, Mohit’s art was an unfortunate cracker accident in the world of art. His elder brother, who was working in Bengaluru at the time, urged his mother to encourage Mohit to start drawing again.
“I suggested that I start using my right hand and start the basics of lines and curves, telling us that there was a college of fine arts in Bengaluru, where I could study further – something that was unheard of in my hometown,” Karnataka Chitkala Chitkala is a former student of a college of fine arts.
After graduation, he went to work in Gallery Sumukh for seven years; A term that ended earlier this year. “When you work in an art gallery, you are dreaming of hosting your own show someday, how you will work inside that place, etc. It was time for me to learn,” the artist says, who used to help in gallery in many roles.
Mohit Mahato | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Two years ago, the founder-director of the gallery Sumukh, Premila Bad, said that Mohit could host Mohit to his show if he could create an enough body of work; Bring me flowers.
The delicate lines that seem doubling, but are necessary, are a large part of their drawing. While most are done in Balk and White, some are the same color game, making its effect more clear on the canvas.
The route was not taken
In 2017, Mohit begins the Pagal canvas – a publishing house that published art books and graphic novels, and collaborated with various multimedia practices in partnership with his friend Anand Shenoy, a comic book artist.
“The Zeen Culture was picking up in Bengaluru and there was no platform to showcase contemporary work by budding artists. While I enjoyed making color -filled books and short book formats, Anand enjoyed telling stories through images. It was the beginning of Pagal canvas in 2017, our junior and other artists were given a chance to show the work made by them.”
Bring me flowers by Mohit Mahato. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Four years ago, the two started a print studio called Pagal Canvas Backyard to support print culture. “I always wanted a place where artists, students and people with equal ideologies could sit together, discuss ideas or see something together, in this process to build a community.”
He began with the trend of screen printing comics and booklets, which proceeded to host residence for fellow artists. Mohit says that between these responsibilities in the gallery and his day’s job, he himself participated in a group show and created cyanotypes (a photographic print).
“Whenever I discussed my idea of ​​a single show, people just assumed that it would be a comic book or a cyanotype. I always took some time to understand that there was a lot in my art. I finally decided on pictures for my first show, work that would reveal something about my work and method.”
Mohit says that his masters always told him that the pictures were his strong points. “Once I came back home in the evening, I will spend time on my sketch. The simple lines leading to wide images gave me a great solution for peace and rest. It was medical,” the artist says, Nature said that nature has been an important part of their life and art.
Bring me flowers by Mohit Mahato. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“If a flower knew that it would fall to the ground in a few days, would it refuse to bloom? Or would it oppose a seed germination because it will change the shape? It doesn’t matter whether I am happy or unhappy, I believe that nature’s answer is,” they say how the natural world remains stable on its curriculum, no matter what it is.
“I wanted my work to be the same, like a magazine in my life. I wanted to share my passion with people and showed them what I had to do.”
Despite this philosopher Libra, Mohit says that his work is for happiness and nothing more.
Performance in the gallery is seed pods, flowers and twigs that Mohit has collected for years during his walk; Some unusually in size, others in their regular avatar. “They inspire me to paint. I know I can’t make an accurate replica again, but they inspire me to make something.” Mohit says that he once came across a seed pod, which looked like a golden snicch from Harry Potter’s Quidich or another who resembles the “Earth’s ear pods”.
Well, with nature as its guide, Mohit has made a book on flora and bound it with ceramic tiles, in which the flowers were pressed on the surface, as well as pages in a mahogany seed pods were also embedded. Small notes are accompanied by their functions that are executed on rice paper to feel “that raw, authentic”. His collection of organic samples is also displayed in flowers that bring me.
Bring me flowers by Mohit Mahato, Gallery is in Sumukh till 17 May. Entry free.
Published – May 14, 2025 01:07 pm IST
