MUMBAI, Oct. 1 -- 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 the country and the sufferings of those on the margins. But the most striking exhibits were gigantic paper works with human-like figures and animals in dystopic settings, nearly all depicted in black, with colours used only for emphasis. Roy's current show at Project 88, titled '.ing: Sceneries without Sovereignty' marks a departure of sorts. Like the earlier one, it dwells on land and belonging, and features work in multiple mediums, including two 33-feet-long drawings showing a plethora of wildlife in the marshes, all depicted in black. But paintings where he uses colours stand out in sharp contrast. "This show is quite a leap from the first one," said Sree Goswami, owner and curatorial director, Project 88. "It is more layered and raises questions about how violent struggles over land are portrayed and how we understand them." Roy's art tutor during his teens, Kishore Ghosh, introduced him to the works of Chittoprasad and Ramkinkar Baij -- an encounter he believes laid the foundation of his artistic journey. During his years in Bengal Fine Arts College in Chandpara, his fellow practitioners further deepened his understanding of art. In 2006-07, movements against forcible land acquisition erupted in Nandigram and Singur in West Bengal, backed by a host of non-CPM parties, including the CPI-ML (Liberation). These events compelled him to reflect on the intersections of politics and art, and by 2009, led him to become a formal member of the party. The following year, his first solo show was held in Delhi, spread across the campuses of University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University. In 2012-14, Roy travelled to parts of Bengal and neighbouring states where CPI-ML (Liberation) was active and painted graffiti and slogans. He also began maintaining a journal of drawings and notes, "documenting all the injustice that I was seeing around me", and publishing his work in little magazines and online publications. By the time Roy left his advertising job and joined Ambedkar University in Delhi for a masters in visual arts in 2014, he had begun calling himself a propagandist-artist. He was not interested in documenting the struggles he witnessed from a distance. Instead, he sought to expose himself "to the brutality of violence and suffering" so he could "simultaneously transform it". Black became his go-to colour in this journey. A few years later, in his first solo show at Project 88, Patwardhan saw in his work a "strong expressionist impulse that was wedded to social criticism and protest". Roy began using colours in a proactive manner only over the past couple of years, when a regular salary courtesy his assistant professorship at Shiv Nadar University in the NCR allowed him to buy expensive materials. The initial forays left him wanting. "I would apply daubs of colour on the canvas, then realise that it was too much and cover it all up with black," he said. "It was frustrating." A fellow artist once advised him to make at least 10 bad paintings before even trying to produce a good one, which gave him some leeway and much-needed confidence. Around the same time, Roy started paying close attention to emotions and personal stories, as opposed to meta narratives, courtesy the insights of artist and researcher Labani Jangi. "Labani establishes a close bond with people very easily. Seeing her research on migrant workers has made me appreciate struggles people face at the individual level and the various ways they resist oppression," he said. The colourful canvases on display at the gallery bear witness to looking - one features a person's leg in a Colocasia farm, the arm nursing a wound on the shin,...