India, Sept. 30 -- When renowned artist Sudhir Patwardhan came across Anupam Roy's "very large, predominantly monochromatic" art works for the first time in 2019, he was struck by their "brute force".

"Bizarre bodies and landscapes took shape through dense black lines, patterns and masses. It was a surreal world deeply rooted in reality," Patwardhan wrote in 'Weaving Labyrinths', a book containing small-scale reproductions of Roy's work.

Roy was then having his first solo show in the city, titled 'De-Notified Land', at Project 88, a Colaba-based art gallery. The show featured his journals with notes and drawings, large drawings pasted on cloth, a few oil paintings and banners - bearing witness to struggles over land in various parts of ...