India, rendered new

Painter · Odisha

Gopal Samantray (b. 1976, Adhanga, Odisha) took his BFA and MFA at B.K. College of Art and Craft, Odisha, in 2002 and 2004, and lives and works in New Delhi. His style was formed in the forests of Odisha's KBK districts, where he grew up beside the jungle and saw the conflict between human development and animal habitat first-hand — the animals in his paintings are never where they belong: a blackbuck before a domed skyline, zebras running beneath an aircraft trail, a big cat roaring over a lit city. Painted in acrylic in a high-keyed, saturated palette of night blues, sudden pinks and golds, with fine linework catching the posture and expression of each animal, the work sits between figuration and surrealism — the scene is legible, the placement is a dream. He was awarded by the Government of Odisha on World Environment Day, 2001, and has shown at the India Art Fair and in solo exhibitions including Dis Mis Placed (Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi, 2010) and Junglenama (Lucknow, 2022, curated by Vandana Sehgal).

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