Untitled

Artist: Gopal Samuntray
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 48 × 48 inches (121.92 × 121.92 cm)
Year: 2011

Artwork presents a compelling visual dialectic between ferocity and fragility, nature and artifice, rendered through a highly evocative and symbolically charged composition. The artist stages this dynamic encounter with a dark-blue gorilla, majestic, raw, and imposing, occupying the left side of the frame. With its mouth agape in a moment of primal assertion, the gorilla becomes a visceral emblem of unrestrained power and instinctive emotion. Set against a cracked, textured backdrop of gray and pale blue, the surface evokes the parched, fractured terrain of drought-stricken earth or the weathered veneer of a decaying wall. This deliberate fragmentation introduces an existential terrain, a metaphor for rupture, vulnerability, and transformation. The deep fissures in the surface act as both visual rupture and generative space, from which delicate pink lotus flowers emerge.

The lotus, long venerated across cultures as a symbol of purity, renewal, and spiritual awakening, introduces a counterpoint to the animal's aggressive posture. The blossoms, depicted in various stages of bloom, rise gracefully from the fractured earth, anchored in a cluster of metallic, bottle-like forms. These sculptural elements, rendered in dark gray with an industrial sheen, stand in stark contrast to the organic softness of the petals, creating a compelling tension between the mechanical and the natural, the inert and the living. The composition thus performs a powerful symbolic interplay: the gorilla, embodiment of primal force, confronts the serene and sacred lotus, traditionally associated with transcendence and peace. Yet rather than existing in conflict, the two forces are held in uneasy coexistence. The gorilla does not trample the flowers, nor do the flowers retreat, they rise, resilient, from the cracks of a hostile ground.

Executed in a style that hovers between abstraction and expressionist surrealism, the painting challenges the viewer to consider dualities, strength and vulnerability, chaos and beauty, decay and regeneration. The textured surfaces, dramatic tonal contrasts, and improbable juxtapositions underscore the artist’s inquiry into the condition of coexistence in an increasingly fragmented world. Work ultimately offers a poignant meditation on resilience, where even in the face of overwhelming force, the fragile retains its agency, and from rupture, new life quietly insists on its place.