Gopal Samantray

Gopal Samantray is an Odisha-based artist whose works play with the idea of a literal urban jungle. His art juxtaposes human and animal worlds to help us viscerally experience the impact of reduced forest cover and the results of human intrusion on the habitats of animals. In Samantray’s brilliantly surreal paintings, we have close encounters with roaring leopards sprawled on the couch, egrets preening in the living room and trees of iron bark; somewhere an eagle sits on a generator, elsewhere pigeons gather around bare stumps of trees. Part fantasy and part cautionary tale, his works blur the lines between cities and forests, homes and the wilderness, to allow us to see the world through the eyes of displaced animals. With his art, Samantray seeks to make a difference and drive home the need for balance and the truth that humans are part rather than the sole owners of the fragile fabric of the earth. In his own words, “The subject I deal with is of grave concern to every living being on this earth. My prime motto (sic) is to make people aware of the situation they are knowingly or unknowingly creating in their thirst for modernization...In the name of progression, we have in many ways regressed. We are slowly tearing apart the one home we were gifted with.”