The Art of Assam from a Connoisseur's Lens

I am now in my mid-sixties, but am lucky enough to feel much younger at times and I have an insatiable passion for art in all forms – painting, sculpture and music -combined with a great love of India, which brings me back every year. 

Assam is one of my favourite states in India. I have been lucky enough to visit four times in the last ten years as a tourist with various travelling companions from England and Europe. But it now holds a special place in my heart because I have dear friends who live there and on my most recent visit in April, I found a very different perspective to its many amazing tourist attractions including temples, national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. I was also acquainted with the vibrant artist community in Guwahati and further afield.

I am an amateur art collector and have been for many years. I am now in my mid-sixties, but am lucky enough to feel much younger at times and I have an insatiable passion for art in all forms – painting, sculpture and music -combined with a great love of India, which brings me back every year.

Within a couple of days of arriving in Guwahati in April, I was introduced to Milin Dutta. Milin is an engaging personality and I met him at lunch one day with my host. We started chatting and when I explained that I had a great love of contemporary art, he offered to help me source local artists and to take me to their studios.

Milin, like me, has remarkable energy and, within 24 hours he had sent me details of many different painters and sculptors who he thought might interest me. He was also extremely generous in his offer to introduce me to any of the artists that I liked. So having arrived in Guwahati on holiday I suddenly found myself swept up into a maelstrom of "artistic activity", visiting painters and sculptors in their studios.

Sarang Dutta was the first artist that I met – he is an engaging and extremely talented abstract painter, based in Guwahati. I fell in love with his work and on that first meeting could see his talent, so we then spent several hours together, which gave me the opportunity to get to know him a little better. Born in 1984, he is the eldest son of Mukul and Bijoya Dutta and has painted from a very young age. He later studied fashion and design. Although he never went to art school, Sarang attended NIFT – the prestigious National Institute for Fashion and Technology - and later worked for major fashion houses in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Throughout his career, he continued to paint and although he still has connections in the world of couture, he is now concentrating on his abstract paintings. He has an enviable sense of colour and paints in a bold style which is evolving all the time.

My only problem was choosing the pieces I liked best, because I could happily have come away with any of the paintings he showed me. But I know we will continue to work together, so will have the pleasure of seeing his work develop in the years to come.

Milin then introduced me to the work of Papu Ghosh, who lives in Kaziranga – famous for its remarkable wildlife park, which attracts tourists from all over the world. So once again I set off with my guide and new-found friend in search of Papu to see his work.

Ghosh, who was born just one year later than Dutta, is acclaimed as a sculptor and has many remarkable pieces on display at his studio. He is also a gifted painter. We only had the chance to meet once because of his busy work commitments, but in our brief encounter, I was impressed by his gentle personality and strong sense of community spirit. He lives a simple life in an incredibly beautiful part of Assam and paints what he sees with remarkable insight.

He paints in a very different style when compared to Sarang Dutta and is principally a landscape and figurative painter, capturing local scenes and personalities on canvas, with a strong sense of colour and perspective. He is also a gifted portrait painter and I was able to see some of his commissioned work in progress at his studio.

But there was one painting in particular that prompted me to travel to see him in Kaziranga, which I was lucky enough to purchase and bring home with me to England.

Four weeks later, I have returned to England with works by both Sarang and Ghosh and I hope to work with these two outstanding and gifted painters here in Europe, and possibly further afield, as well as continuing to work with them when in Assam.

Their paintings are currently with my framer and I look forward to hanging them on my walls at home.

What made these two meetings so special for me, was not just their generous spirit, but also their recommendations on other artists who might appeal to me elsewhere in India. Sarang put me in touch with an artist in Goa – Alok Johri - who I met two weeks later, when travelling south. But I know that this is only the beginning of my foray into Assamese art and I look forward to returning later this year.

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