Dhiraj Choudhary

Dhiraj Choudhary was born in 1936, in what is now Bangladesh. He was a politically and socially motivated artist. This has a lot to do with him witnessing the struggle for independence and the recurrent Bengal famine. Changed his perspective and theme of his painting therefore, he says, "For me, art is not merely an exercise in aesthetics or technical expertise. That is the reason I have never felt the need to pursue 'art for art's sake'. He has actively depicted the suffering of the downtrodden. Whether it was the famine-stricken peasants of Bengal crying out for some food, the miserable farmers of the South gathering the harvest in other`s fields. His strokes of colours and usage of bold lines and depictions carried so much meaning and intensity that one could feel the scenario that he painted. As he said, “the pictures I paint may not be pretty, but they are an expression of my love for humanity and my genuine concern for the world at large. My art is not a pleasure trip. It is the battlefield of my 50-year struggle for freedom, which is still going on!

The shift in the theme of his paintings came towards the end of the nineties towards subjects like love, which according to him could eradicate greed and violence. He has explored the true meaning of the emotion of love in his paintings. "Art, I believe, can play an active role in creating social awareness and I would, in my own small way, try to light a candle in the darkness of ignorance and greed." With that notion, he has tried to ignite the strong emotion of love. In this series, Choudhary`s subjects became simple and communicative like painting the figure of the mother, father, and man, women.