EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 10:: 33 paintings of Suman Gupta are displayed in the Exhibition representing his journey in the field of art inaugurated at the Rinchen Zangpo Art Gallery by the First Lady of Jammu & Kashmir, Usha Vohra. Prof Varun Sahni, Vice Chancellor, Jammu University, presided over the inaugural ceremony. The retrospective has been organized by the University of Jammu and encompasses the 20 years of creative works of the artist from 1990 till date. A number of paintings that are a part of private and corporate collections across the world have been specially brought here and put on display in the Retrospective.
The First Lady Vohra showered high praise on the creative works displayed in the Exhibition and congratulated the artist for highlighting the life, culture and the landscape of the region in his works. She also expressed her deep appreciation for the University of Jammu for taking the initiative for highlighting the contribution of one of the most prominent contemporary painters of our State whose works are known internationally.
Suman Gupta thanked the University of Jammu and particularly Prof. Varun Sahni and the faculty connected with the Art Gallery for showing ken interest in organizing this retrospective of his art works.
Expressing his opinion about the paintings o Suman Gupta, well known art historian Dr. Lalit Gupta, who is also the Curator of the Exhibition, said “whenever his works are shown in an architectural setting, his characters and other elements are composed around corners of walls, buildings, and angles of rooflines, the windows and doorways, which separate as well as bring together outside and inside- allowing a play of imagination in such works.  It is in such works of Suman Gupta, the eclectic, transcends from topographical realism to a kind of expressionistic-magical realism—the distinguishing feature of his works today”.   
Writing about the paintings of Suman Gupta in the beautiful catalogue that was released on the occasion by the First Lady, well known filmmaker Amit Dutta has said “The characters inhabiting these landscapes are self-absorbed within those landscapes, like inside folktales.
Figure and ground recede into each other as an integral whole.  Here the real and tangible, copied from life, without breaching any physical law of nature, has assumed a heightened ethereality; the more precise the details, the more fantastic it seems. All these give the impression of an autonomous passage of time inside the paintings, lending it the air of cinema…… The process of art, starting from awareness of the surroundings to various levels of self-awareness of the artist, by itself might be the truth and wisdom of it. The spontaneity and conviction with which the artist wields the brush is what ultimately awakens the senses and enriches the memory and breadth of human experience.”
The Exhibition will remain open till April 10, 2010.