Digital Art by Samanta Batra Mehta

Some of Samanta Batra's recent work is on display at Gallery BMB's new show, A Place Of Their Own: An exhibition of South Asian-American Diaspora Artists. Born in New Delhi, her undergraduate years were spent studying economics and information systems. She worked in the finance and international shipping industries before beginning a full-time art career. She currently lives in New York. I was instantly taken by her series of four digital photographs: The Last of the Uncolonized Lands. The dark physical beauty and psychadelic dream-like atmosphere of these images, work quickly on the eye and mind. In the background of each of the images is a dark forest of morphed leafless trees. I have seem similar computer manipulations of objects, so it's not a unique idea. However, the structured yet confused images of the trees suggest a sad and tortured mind or internal state. This is a great setting for the figures of women draped in white translucent satin-like cloth, in various dramatic poses, some on beds and others floating in space. They seem to be in various states of emotional pain or sexual longing. They are passive women, either experiencing the aftermath of events, or waiting for something to happen to them. She writes on her website, "I am interested in mapping connections between the human condition and the environment we inhabit. Using the body and abstracted organic forms as metaphor for land/earth/people, my work investigates themes in gender constructs, socio-cultural order and colonization." Her works at the exhibition clearly fit this mould. Though not groundbreaking in theme, treatment, or technique, Mehta's photographs have a beauty and power that will attract most viewers.