Mughal miniatures have elegant, manicured gardens. Soma Das’s paintings unfold against insipid urban sprawls. Traditional Indian miniatures have kings and courtiers with their stately elephants and glittering forts. Das’s paintings contain hoi polloi in their slapdash huts and tenements. Ancient miniatures portray exquisitely bejewelled women waiting in love and longing. Das paints scruffy women all knotted up in the exhausting drama of everyday living. But there is bold, vivid imagery in both, a riotous interplay of colours and gatherings, and much handsome detailing. “I have imbibed all the techniques of detailing, arrangement, narration and aerial perspective from the tradition of miniature painting,”says the 41-year-old Kolkata-based artist, who quotes the quotidian in her canvas in the style of a neo-miniaturist.
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