Taxi Duo

Born in Kolkata, 2005

Comments:

We, Suman & Sourav, are two individuals and our works are collaborative in nature.
We are artistically together from 2005 under group name “Taxi”. “Photo-Paintings or
Paintings on Photography” our form of visual expression. It strives to go beyond both
photography and painting, and with this aim combines elements from both the fields.
Here, photography and painting do not lay side by side in a passive manner, but
overlap, interpenetrate, dissolve, juxtapose, touch, meet or communicate to make it
one and total.

Our work begins with sketches and engages in a great deal of editing. From these drawings, work proceeds to the selection of models, construction of sets and props, preparation of costumes, development of lights and make-ups etc.. Once the scene is photographed, a single print is selected from the many exposures. It is then painted and glazed. A photo-mechanical product transforms into a photographic tableau.

The fairytale-ness that characterizes our work is patently derivative. We engage in overt
mixing of pre-existing imageries, styles, genres, and pictorial traditions. In fact, our work
is the result of grab-bagging of aesthetic interests. It is a polytheistic aesthetism that
speaks to love affair with visual culture, taking equal pleasure in divinity and banality.
Artifice is central to our work. Human subjects are set in frontal, didactic poses against
alluring but fake-looking backdrops, feathers, flowers. A model set in mise-en-scene.

However, our photo-paintings does not forsake complexity for beauty. Our photo-paintings serve as fanciful documentation for an array of subjects, each with its own discrete stories. We are interested in looking at different lifestyles, gender relations, sexualities, cultures from our perspective. We look for multilayeredness of reality.

Our work draws inspiration from so many disparate influences – mythology, paintings,
literature, commercial classic lithographic art, films, newspaper clippings, family albums,
memories and everyday snapshots.

Members of the group