I like to depict the modern times when people have lost all human contact and have become mechanised. They read newspapers, pick up some jargon and communicate most of the time by telephone. As a painter, I throw light on these aspects where traditions are breaking down and the relationship between generations is getting lost.

Ashoke Mullick is considered one of the leading painters from the Bengal School of Art. Mullick combines a sense of satire with contemporary conditions. His paintings focus strongly on the ordinary man and the contradictions he faces.

Sometimes the look is satiric at other times, it is compassionate, says Mullick of his own works. He uses colours like greens and blues to depict a largely urban India.

Mullick was educated at the Fine Arts Government College, Kolkata. He was greatly fascinated and influenced by works of painters like Gaganendranath Tagore. I was also influenced by German Expressionism that linked art to life. The effects I create are intentional and I want them to become a part of visual experience, he says.

He mostly works in oil on canvas, because as he says, That’s the medium which let’s me experiment the most and which helps me to depict modern life, which in some ways is surrealistic.