His art is generally described as a form of geometric abstraction, but the description seems entirely inadequate. His paintings are slow, meticulous, exquisitely conceived and executed in their balance of shapes and colours against the rectangle of each canvas. They all carry a depth of memory, emotion and, often, a quizzical humour that turns them into something closer to stories. It is no different in Ground Control, his posthumous solo exhibition being hosted at Experimenter, Ballygunge Place (on view till October 15). As was Raja’s wont, the exhibition engages with multiple media and several lines of thought.

It is difficult to pin down the cotton tapestries and oil on panel paintings on display that seem like well-drawn-out blueprints. Raja’s plans to ‘control’ — his meticulous lines notwithstanding — go awry and it is this loss of control that the artist explores. The lines could apply to rules and regulations, notations, or the timing, precision and discipline that govern the fields of music, sports technology and architecture — recurring influences in Raja’s work. For an artist raised in West Bengal, in a region divided between India and East Pakistan after Partition, the arbitrary lines that divide his canvases also signify something else: borders and their futility.

The most obvious influence in this show, though, is that of his growing-up years. Raja grew up in Calcutta, in a family steeped in textile design and weaving. This is a craft that needs exceptional control and skill and Raja had always been mesmerised by the complexities of weaving techniques and its underlying grid — a pattern that has been a constant source of exploration for him. The works on view in Ground Control are woven by the master weaver, Dipak Haldar, in close collaboration with Raja, on double-weft handlooms in Phulia. Many a meaning emerges between Raja’s conception of these blueprint-like works and their execution — the artist was as interested in his vision as he was in the translation, the slippages and the transformation of form, from drawing to painting to scanning to weaving on the looms in India, and back on stretchers in his studio in Brooklyn as woven paintings. The works take shape from art to craft and vice versa and from paper to image to thread. Since the works underwent several processes, some executed in Raja’s studio and others in the weavers’ pit looms, Ground Control also explores aspects of control and its absence that a creator has over an artistic work.

That is not the only sort of control Raja explores. Some of these blueprints are of sports fields — growing up, Raja played several field sports and remained intrigued by them, especially because sports are defined by lines and rules that qualify these lines. His interest in them was natural given his awareness of the fractured political history of South Asia, where lines of control are real and palpable and the punishments for breaking them dire.

At the core of the exhibition is one of Raja’s pavilions, which he envisioned in drawings, notes, sketches and digital renditions, and which is influenced by Durga Puja pandals that appear every year in the city, bringing together art, craft, public and private spaces, music, installation and interactivity. With the musician, Mike Ladd — a long-standing collaborator — Raja created soundscapes for these pandals from deeply layered sonic sources. Here no lines hold. In fact, it is the blurring of lines that this seemingly chaotic festival excels in.

Writer-Kanishka Raja's 

The lotus, the banana leaf and the egrets proclaim the regional identity of the two large acrylic and tempera canvases as clearly as they do the values and vision of the Bangladeshi artist, Rokeya Sultana: a deep, protective concern for the girl child and the resilient woman she must grow into. This merges with, what seems to be, a pantheistic embrace of the environment, as each becomes a symbol of the other in Return the Innocent Earth 1 and 2. Her solo show at ICCR, which had brought together a selection of her paintings and prints done over 40 years, made one wonder why this Kala Bhavanatrained artist wasn’t already a known name in West Bengal.

Sultana pays tribute to the heroic resilience of the ordinary woman as Madonna, alert to lurking perils if she is Lost in the Maze of Hatirjheel, a 54”x108” acrylic in bleeding reds, or when she is hanging from the grab-bar of a crowded bus, eyes watching over her daughter in Madonna and the Passengers, an etching of dense articulation that recalls Somnath Hore. In her everyday chores, the woman is often the dumb, sacrificial goat, decapitated head nestling in her lap, as in an untitled painting.

The horrors of the 1971 struggle remain an incendiary point of reference for Bangladesh, memorialised by the artist in several works. The monochrome litho, Women of War (2017), with its huddle of disrobed women, heads buried between their knees, seethes with the angry tone of J’accuse in an indictment not just of an invading army but also of the addictive game of thrones men play, with women — and the environment — treated as casual collateral damage, both brutalised to crush the defender’s morale and scorch vital resources.

Sultana’s innocuously titled The Mother’s Pouch (2016) takes on an epic scale, not so much because of its size — 64.9”x132.2” (approximately) — but because it weaves in a minefield of details, each a fraught signifier, to distil into a single image the catastrophe of a people forging a nation through fire: the meek homemaker in loose bedroom flipflops and dishevelled sari carries a rifle, ready to kill; the girl with her clutches a bundle; a shadowy line of bedraggled villagers — possibly done in print and replicated to suggest anonymous multitudes — flees from army tanks seen in the far distance, even as the guns of resistance are held aloft in the other corner. But war is gender-neutral in crucifying unknown fighters. And Sultana’s litho, Mother and the Martyred Child (2017, picture) — whose gender isn’t stated — refers, in abbreviated terms, to Pieta as a timeless, universal metaphor for fortitude in ineffable grief.

The figurative tradition of Santiniketan is apparent in the artist’s early prints like Returning Home (1983), reminiscent of the Santhal Family. Simultaneously, she was also experimenting with abstractions of pulsating dynamism and, later, did semi-abstract paintings like Harvesting (1915) with a play of colours. But a blend of nebulous, evanescent tones is best seen in Earth, Water, Air (1999). It’s a tempera that sees Nature as feminine and, hence, vulnerable.

Writer-Rita Dutta

The Justice Society is led by Hawkman, an archaeologist who is the reincarnation of the Egyptian prince Khufu who enslaved Adam, and has the power of flight from his Nth metal wings. Slipping into the suit of Hawkman/ Carter Hall is Aldis Hodge.

Known for playing football great Jim Brown in the Regina King-directed 2020 film One Night in Miami and central parts in Hidden Figures and the TV show Leverage, Hodge spoke to The Telegraph over a cross-continental video call on his superhero film that also stars Pierce Brosnan and Noah Centineo, his intense physical prep to become Hawkman and his side gig as a horologist.

Before this film, what was your understanding of the Black Adam universe and particularly of Hawkman?

I am a big comic book guy, especially the JSA (Justice Society of America, a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics). I knew of Black Adam’s  antagonism with Hawkman and his conflict with the JSA. When I got the film, I did more of a deep-dive into Hawkman, his origins and his ideas... and it was pretty awesome. Hawkman has an incredible backstory and that got me very excited.

Given that there have been quite a few versions of Hawkman, the number one question I got was always, ‘Which version of Hawkman are you going to be?’ I wasn’t really focused on trying to pick a specific version. I was looking for the stream of consistency of who this person was... what is the thing that most people familiarise themselves with when they think about Hawkman? The key I figured out was being emotionally consistent with the character, I just built off of that and made my own sort of variation of that.

Was the challenge of playing Hawkman synonymous with the creative highs you experienced while filming Black Adam?

The challenge for me was primarily physical. We trained non-stop for many months before shoot began because making this film was a big endurance test. I spent 12-14 hours a day carrying a lot of weights! (Laughs) That was the craziest part of shooting this film for me because it was a definite education for me in terms of what fitness looks like.

I was very excited about prepping for this film because I knew I would get a very different perspective into fitness and I would get to completely change my body in a way that I hadn’t ever before. And God knows that was tough, man! (Laughs)

What was the most difficult part of the physical prep to become Hawkman?

The weights and all that I could master after a while, but it was the nutrition and the diet bit of it that really threw me. I love juice, juice is beautiful, but then everything has sugar. I had to give up everything that has sodium. It was really tough and sometimes I would be like, ‘Give me a bagel, please! (Laughs) And my nutritionist would just give me six pistachios! (Laughs)

But one knows that the body always follows the mind and I had to strengthen my mind first. It was a lesson, I will tell you that.  Doing the kind of physical prep that I have done for this film has helped me a lot even after that. There was a time when I had hurt my back and I wasn’t regular at the gym for a very long time. The physical prep I did for Black Adam helped me then, in terms of understanding my body. The process of shooting this film was the best time I have ever had on set. Just trying to make something of this magnitude and seeing everyone on this film working the way they do, at such a high level, was enlightening. 

What was the first thing you ate when you got out of that punishing diet?

(Laughs) I am not a big burger guy but there is a place in Atlanta called Fred’s Meat & Bread and they have some great burgers, they have Philly cheesesteaks and when I knew I had to put back all that daddy weight, I just plunged in and ate a lot of their stuff.

We take a trip down memory lane to take a look at the five best moments of Hagrid from the Harry Potter film series. 

“Yer a wizard, Harry” – Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone 

Hagrid was the first person who brought Harry to the Dursleys after his parents were killed by the dark wizard. Naturally, he would be the first person to tell Harry about his magical roots. Visiting Harry for the first time, Hagrid literally breaks down the door of the hut where Vernon Dursley hid his family to stop Harry from getting his Hogwarts acceptance letter. He also brings a handmade cake with pink icing and green lettering to wish Harry on his 11th birthday. The half-giant quickly realises Harry doesn’t know anything about himself and declares, “Yer (You’re) a wizard, Harry,” much to the shock of the boy who lived.