[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”RGBA(255,255,255,0)” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
I first saw Tanmoy\u2019s artworks in Mumbai in 2014 at TARQ, Colaba. The works stood in sharp contrast to the world \u2013 their muted colours, the fragility of the material, themes almost absent at first glance. But the works nudged you to reconsider, to deliberate, to look deeper into their seeming simplicity. As the years passed, I followed Tanmoy\u2019s works, turning to them for their quiet, their stillness, and their negotiation of unmoving time. Over the years some of these early themes have crossed over into later works, new ones have emerged, while others seemed present even in their absence.<\/p>\n
So much of Tanmoy\u2019s work seems to reflect on the notions of home and belonging, an engagement with the domestic and the mundane.\u00a0Tanmoy returns\u00a0consistently to a kind of \u2018home\u2019 – the simple outline of the roof as it bends to meet the shuttered window, or other structures that seem more makeshift. \u00a0The weight of \u201chome\u201d bears down heavily on us as we come to reconsider what it means to belong, especially as we are caught in the heartless destruction that punctures the time we live in. Silhouettes are made to emerge subtly through the layered technique of his hand. We piece together the past layer by layer and an opaque stillness gives way to forms that throw clues at us, like fossils. In \u00a0\u201cWeigh up\u201d a more recent work shown at the Gallery Espace (New Delhi) Tanmoy returns to the theme of object.<\/p>\n
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[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”95%” max_width=”1600px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Spilling-through-the-cracks-I-scaled.jpg” title_text=”Spilling, through the cracks-I” show_in_lightbox=”on” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”0a6c4baa-304e-458e-9003-bb7edad6cc4b” text_font=”Josefin Sans|500|||||||” text_line_height=”1.5em” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
Weigh Up,<\/em>\u00a0Part of Lost & Found curated by Jesal Thacker at Gallery Espace, New Delhi in 2025\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”||16px|||” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n A scale balances a large boulder-like form, jagged, angular, like a beast folded up, seemingly unforgiving as it sits against a fragment of itself. The scale does not move. It does not bend. It does not measure. It stays in Tanmoy\u2019s characteristic stillness. I have often thought about this work, the distance it draws from us – who want to reach in and tip the scales, to make right, to measure, to judge and demand.<\/p>\n Perhaps Tanmoy, as artist, does not yield. Perhaps, instead, he references back to old texts and Zen stories, where monks in moonlight trace over sand gardens considering the moment as it arrives, only to be replaced by another. Perhaps Tanmoy just wants to leave the work there for us to encounter. What the works seem to offer is, in many ways a primordial origin myth, stories at the very beginning of time, before they are heard and retold, made anew with every teller.<\/p>\n The almost monk-like fascination with the object \u2013 a refusal to make \u2018right\u2019 invokes Tanmoy\u2019s years at Shantiniketan in the 90s. Tanmoy remembers the years as being in flux, for the institute that had begun to look towards other centers of artistic expression and learning. But for him, everything was already there, the barren landscapes of the Santhal villages that surrounded the institute became his solitude where he could introspect. In an interview<\/u><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Tanmoy observes, \u201cThe rich legacy of Kala Bhavan was vividly present but in different scenarios, there was a vacuum as one was faced with a challenge to reinvent and move. I chose to dwell in the vacuum, I did not want to lose the essence of what made this institution unique yet significant and bring back my life and time at Kala Bhavan into my work.\u201d<\/p>\n It is this tension that best represents Tanmoy\u2019s \u2018struggle\u2019 as an artist. His works often suggest a tense dialogue between the natural world and domestic tools, the environment\u00a0in collision with the effects of mechanisation and industry. The tense, even predatory effect of industry doesn\u2019t become apparent when you first engage with his works. But Tanmoy works layer upon layer of both paint and paper, creating an opacity for the works and even as he makes objects into gestures, the tensions begin to reveal themselves. As we come to encounter his works, the artist encourages us to contemplate the complexity of being, to dissolve, disperse and become deeply intertwined. It is also the textural quality of these works that lend themselves to a sense of the fragile \u2013 where rice paper is pasted to board before colours are added through a process of layering. These layers, that are added and taken away, objects rendered in a colour palette that meanders between the palest pink and shadows of green, heighten the sense of things forgotten and things remembered. It seems almost like a universe that cannot be disturbed but instead chooses to throw us headfirst into the encounter.<\/p>\n A work entitled \u2018The Time Keeper\u2019s Manual\u2019 (2014) bears the same loss of time, and the recall of memory where forgotten objects metamorphosise into a landscape of the remembered.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/The-time-keepers-manual.jpg” title_text=”The time keeper’s manual” show_in_lightbox=”on” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”0a6c4baa-304e-458e-9003-bb7edad6cc4b” text_font=”Josefin Sans|500|||||||” text_line_height=”1.5em” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n The Time Keeper\u2019s Manual,<\/em>\u00a0shown as part of “The Shadow Trappers Almanac” curated by Ranjit Hoskote at Tarq, Mumbai in 2014<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n In this work the artist crafts a found book, moulding it with rice paper, until the book itself, the repository of knowledge, no longer comes to bear upon its original meaning but instead takes on a different subjectivity. The unusable watch dials in gold, black, white, and grey fill the pages. They no longer embody Time.\u00a0Instead, they create their own sense of rhythm and space – move along the page as if they were an exploding constellation searching for new meaning, fresh purpose. They begin by dripping on to the page, settling into a formation, reaching out like Orion\u2019s belt, and finally coming to bear as sight. \u00a0Watch dials without arms negotiate an abstract temporality, grasping for new meaning even as their function is lost.<\/p>\n