Dilip Oinam the artist I know

Jyaneswar Laishram *

Flight of childhood-I : Painting by Dilip Oinam
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Being a neighbour for more than a decade and brought up together playing cricket on the same old playgrounds around Bishenpur town in Manipur, I know Dilip Oinam a bit more than what his normal friends do. He spent his boyhood in the town where his mother worked in a hospital and his father used to teach English in a school located in the nearby town of Nambol where both of them (his parents) were hailed from. Today, Dilip stays in New Delhi with his wife and the rest of the family are settled in Imphal.

I still remember him as a young boy who rather fond of art since his younger years. I often noticed a touch of 'fine art' in him when he developed interest in painting during his early teens. He started painting landscapes while all his other painter friends in the town were busy stroking their brushes on portraits of movie actors, patriots and other celebrities. His works captured a true essence of the natural scenes which he portrayed without a glitch.

When Dilip first came to Delhi in 2001 for further study at Delhi College of Art after a brief BFA at Indira Kala Sangeet Vishwa Vidyalaya in Kheragarh (Chattishgarh), he gave me a painting of a misty mountain in which he gracefully captured a panorama of semi-silhouetted Laimaton Hill hiding its top in a thick blanket of cotton cloud erupted on an evening in Bishenpur after a mid-summer shower.

Laimaton Hill standing massive in the western horizon at a distance of around a couple of kilometers from our Kuthi Leikai colony enhances Bishenpur's landscape to inspire the budding artists like Dilip for some nature aquarelles. Unfortunately I have lost the painting of Laimaton Hill. I don't know whether it was stolen or misplaced by moving men when we shifted to a new house in Delhi in 2006. But the hunt is still on to trace the lost magnum opus!

Wherever he goes
Bishnepur, Imphal, Kheragarh, New Delhi… Dilip has been to places where the wind of his art follows. Overall themes and narratives in his works keep changing wherever he roams from one place to another. His romancing the hilly terrains of Bishenpur blew temporarily out of his easel when he stayed for one and a half years in Kheragarh. Subjects of his paintings during his short Kheragarh days eventually revolved around lonely railway tracks, village hovels, poor farmers he frequently encountered while strolling down the secluded hot and dry plain of rural north India. But he often mentioned about hidden charm which he caught and bought out of the heat and dust of the region.

A big turn in Dilip's works took place when he started exhibiting at some leading art galleries around Delhi after his BFA at Delhi College of Art, New Delhi. His acrylics on canvas began to capture magical impressions revolving around unique characters and objects related to folklores and mythologies. His new angles pulled attentions of a horde of collectors rushing from different overseas countries like the USA, Australia, Egypt, France, South Korea, just to tick a few.

All leading art galleries and popular venues around Delhi are where Dilip's works are often found on display. And the latest showcase will be at 'Strokes From The East'— a three-day exhibition by The Kolor Box— unveiling on June 28 at Convention Foyer of India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

Flight of childhood-I : Painting by Dilip Oinam
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Unique elements
Many critics say Dilip's high dramas and vibrant strokes of acrylics on canvas effectively do justice to his themes and narratives. Earthy, bold reds and coppery browns lending shapes and forms to iconic figures, whether it could be a child or a woman solidly holding grounds, are the most common portrayals seen in most of Dilip's works.

Another interesting point which many appreciators point out in Dilip's works is the inhibition of a whole complex of meanings like multi-layered and painstaking treatments which further enhance the overall elements of drama in his acrylics on canvas. Such fuss is considerably the style which he creates so originally in most of his works.

If you want to catch him 'live', just drop in at Convention Foyer of India Habitat Centre, New Delhi where The Kolor Box will flaunt the artist's newest stokes at Strokes From The East from June 28-30, 2013!