A CORRESPONDENT
DHUBRI: Eighty-five-year-old Karen Chandra Roy, a visual artist of Dhubri district who remained far away from media glare, was recognized for his artistic calibre and supremacy with colour and brush, by the Assam State Museum at the artist's native village Kurirpar on Wednesday. In a formal ceremony organized at the residence of the artist, State Directorate of Museums, Government of Assam, felicitated the artist for his years-long hard work in creating extraordinary oil paintings based on multiple subjects.
Karen Chandra Roy started painting at an early age. The subject of the paintings varied from outdoor landscapes of Dhubri, portraits of political figures of India and of the Barua Zamindar family of Gauripur and other cultural dignitaries of Assam. The realistic depiction of his paintings is extremely laudable.
Roy, while speaking in the felicitation programme, said that the passion and hobby of painting converted into a professional career under the guidance and training of Tezan, a Kolkata-based artist who lived in Dhubri.
"In my entire professional period of 50 years, I have made more than 2,500 oil paintings. Today, due to my health I am not able to make any paintings but my zeal and love for painting is never going to fade away from my heart. I never made paintings as a source of income but it was purely because of my inseparable attachment with nature and people which I always tried to put on canvas," Roy said humbly. Addressing the meeting, Directorate of Museum and Director of Assam State
Museum, YS Wunglengton said that this would open up scope for visual artists and students of entire Assam to study and learn about the practice, technique and skill of Karen Roy's paintings.
Social activist and a member Gauripur Raj family, Prabir Barua, social activist, Dhubri District Cultural Officer,Jiten Das and Dhubri District Museum Officer Mrinmoy Das were present on the occasion.
Talking to The Sentinel, Dhubri District Museum Officer, Mrinmoy Das informed that at the initiative of Directorate of Museums, Government of Assam, through the Dhubri District Museum, the nine oil paintings donated to the government would now be a part of the permanent collection of the Assam State Museum. Karen Chandra Roy, who is the father of renowned folk musician of Western Assam, Dulal Chandra Roy, formally donated nine oil paintings to the Directorate of Museums, Government of Assam on the occasion. Family members present in the felicitation programme, while repenting about the huge painting which they could not preserve and protect, informed that most of his paintings got damaged during the 1988 flood in Dhubri.
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