Drawn to the nature, Delhi-based poet, writer, painter and sculptor Satish Gupta's journey began as a painter of landscapes. His paintings encompass portraiture, landscape as well as abstract imagery and reflect his deep engagement with mysticism and Zen spirit. The colours used are minimalistic, delicate and understated like blues, moss green, lilac pink, earthy brown and beige make for an ethereal world.Satish Gupta, a karamyogi and a creative genius, is a multi-faceted artist, painter, sculptor, poet, writer, printmaker, skilled draftsman, muralist, designer, calligrapher and ceramicist, who refuses to be labelled and is truly an artist without boundaries.Satish is exhibiting his complete collection of sculptures, paintings and haikus at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre. Known for his life-size installations, copper sculptures, paintings, drawings and calligraphy, the eclectic artist Satish Gupta recently collaborated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a sculpture-painting titled 'Om NAMO Shivay' which received rave reviews from the art critics and enthusiasts alike. On display at the exhibition will be his lifetime’s works of 10 sculptures, 8 paintings and 72 haikus.Blouin Artinfo speaks to Satish Gupta on his inspiration, his creations, his tryst with Buddha and much more. What is your inspiration behind your creations? My basic inspiration is life itself and just the wonder that we are alive. It has taken nature millions of years to bring us to this form and I think this itself is a miracle and wonder. So anything in nature which keeps on moving inspires me a lot. All my creations are inspired by nature and life.What is your fascination with the Zen philosophy and what is your idea behind the Zen Space show?Zen to me is not just the philosophy even though for many years I have been influenced by the Zen. Its involvement with emptiness, silence and tranquillity are the main elements in my works. I refer Buddha greatly and I am highly inspired by his whole life and his thoughts. But more than that Buddha is in all of us. My book on Zen talks about revelations and awaking of mind. Zen is all about living in the moment. Through this Zen Space show I want to share my experience over time and over many many years. My journey has been very eclectic. I don’t want to imprison myself by certain style because I keep changing all the time. It’s not a conscious thing that I have to change but naturally I feel I want to express myself in a certain way and I do that. At one point I feel like Singars then my work becomes more oriented to that Rasa. Tell us something about your creative journey so far. How it all started twenty-five years ago?I started painting the sea, clouds and the moon and then I came to a point where I was removing things from my work. Everything that was not necessary, I was removing out. It was deconstruction in a way till I arrived at the empty zen circle. There was just a sunya. This was a tremendous experience. Every morning I used to meditate and with my ink and brush I just did the circles. I must have done it something like five thousand times over the years. I wanted to get that energy and it has to come from your whole life. It has to express in that one stroke and I was not getting it. It was the life and breath which I was searching for. If this is not breathing or palpitating – it has no use. After that I went to monasteries to search for an inspiration which was almost twenty years back. I found the nature very fascinating and I felt I was at the centre of the zen circle. That moment was a major turning point in my life. At the monastery I was amused with the monks who were chanting lotus sutra sitting in rows. At the centre there was big image of Buddha and on the wall there were thousands of images of Buddha. That was a revelation. There I realised that emptiness can be viewed as fullness. That was a great realisation in my life. After that I went to desert to paint and I met a guy called Qasim and I painted him for almost thirteen years over the dessert. I went figurative with the desert series and I have done some around 300 desert series in 'The Eyes Of The Thar' collection. After that I painted Transformation series.Tell us something about your connection with Buddha? How it has played important role in your life?Buddha for me is not just the Buddhism. It is not the God that you see painted there. It is the Buddha within all of us. It’s the presence of the divine in us. For me that is Buddha. In the physical form I find his image very beautiful and inspiring. In the Zen Space show the ‘Buddha Within’, which is my largest sculpture, is on display. I was in Sri Lanka during the time of Tsunami and I went to the caves over there and I saw Buddha painted over the walls along with some sculptures of sitting Buddha. So this has taken me all these years to eternalise that experience and to come up with an homage to the Tsunami and the connection with Buddha. This is all about the nature – creation and destruction of the elements like air, fire and water. It’s all about being conscious about the universe and the nature gifted to us by the God. For me every moment is a meditation and there I connect with Buddha.Tell us something about the gigantic Garuda sculpture. What really it talks about?An elegantly aerodynamic Garuda ‘Surrender' done in copper with patina, stainless steel with gold and mirror finish measuring 12 x 16 x 9 feet to understand the sheer magnitude of his perspective. Despite its size, this sculpture exhibits a suggestion of lightness, the possibility of flight that is more real than imagined. Over the last many years I have created many large sculptures which took a lot of my time — the 12-feet high Surya at Delhi airport, the Devi, the monumental Vishnu, and the recent two-ton Garuda flying through sculpted clouds.What is your connection with Indian mythology? For me mythology is the connection with lord Vishnu, Shiva and the Devi. Vishnu represents the supernova, ever expanding with energy flowing out, while Shiva represents the black hole at the centre of the galaxy absorbing the constant flow, contracting and coalescing till it evaporates and finally, bursts into a supernova spewing out tremendous energy again. The upright figure of Hanuman with folded hands on red canvas is outlined by a copper frame with miniature Hanuman figures carved on it. This is my connection with lord Hanuman. The energy of Vishnu, Shiva and Brahman manifest itself as the Shakti of the three goddesses Laxmi, Durga and Saraswati or collectively as the Devi. If you notice my connection with the mythology and inspirations are visible in the copper heads of the Devi, Shiva or even Vishnu and despite being taken out of Hindu mythology seamlessly transcend religion and regional boundaries.
Follow@ARTINFOIndia
↧