The Source of Creativity Is Inexhaustible: Basanta Kumari Samanta

A feature titled 'Sarjanara Usa Aphuranta: Basanta Kumari Samanta' (The Source of Creativity Is Inexhaustible), written by Manmathi Ratha and published in Dharitri's Chhutidina Sunday supplement (26 February – 4 March 2023 edition). Illustrated with several of her canvases — a mother cradling her child, elderly figures rendered in charcoal, and women navigating hardship and solitude — the piece reads her decades of work as one unbroken wellspring of creativity spanning both painting and poetry. It retraces her biography: born on 18 Kartika 1943 in Khallikote to Chandrasekhar Das Samanta and Purnamasi Devi, her Diploma in Fine Art Oil Painting from Khallikote College of Arts and Crafts in 1961, her appointment as an art teacher at Chikiti Government High School in 1963, and her felicitation as a senior painter by Padma Bhushan sculptor Raghunath Mahapatra on the occasion marking 200 years since the Paika Rebellion.