The myriad minded artist

There are certain valid reasons why Lalu Prasad Shaw pursued two different styles simultaneously in his tempera and graphic prints. While in Art College he leant techniques of handling oil and transparent watercolour, later, he started handling body colour or opaque watercolour known as tempera. He mastered printmaking by handling the technique at the Society of Contemporary Artists’ studio and by seeing his co-artists’ work. His graphic prints are abstract in nature, mostly geometric and present a play of an image-ground relationship in black and white. The abstract images that he pulls out register a timeframe that would not have been expressed otherwise. The expression of the tools too play a decisive role in defining an artist’s style. Graver and burin with their sharp points eschew representation and ply naturally towards pure form. A set of contemporary prints from Czechoslovakia that he saw played a catalytic role for his experimentation with pure form. Kolkata’s architectural ambience in steel and cement also provided the visual inputs that metamorphosed into geometrical abstractions.