Samadhi

Spiritual Realms... more

by Pma

Buy the Original Painting

Price

$1,200

Dimensions

22.000 x 22.000 x 1.000 inches

Title

Samadhi

Artist

Pma

Medium

Painting - Acrylic On Canvas

Description

Spiritual Realms

While world gallops on the globalisation horse, there exist a wide spectrum of local cultures meandering ever quietly in the daily lives and ethos of people of different colours, creeds and callings. India is one such cultural space where proliferate and converge a myriad of socio-cultural nuances inherited and practiced by a billion people. It is a matter of contentment that these cultural spaces evolved over thousands of years of humanity. In India’s cultural evolution Mohenjo daro was a watershed but this culture vanished suddenly—some historians suggest because of change in climate. Unfortunately we know not much about this vast culture which existed in an area of 1,65,000 square kilometre and is known for its finesse in art through the famous Dancing Girl sculpture. India was also enriched by subsequent Aryan culture which is ensconced in Rig Veda—composed probably around 1600 BC in Punjab. This culture based on Pantheism has predominant influence on spiritual, social and artistic developments in India. More than a religion it evolved into a way of life as S. Radhakrishnan former President and philosopher enunciated. The by products of this culture was Yoga and spiritual awakening through Kundalini that was explained through pictograms in ancient manuscripts.

Modern Indian art inherited this vast storehouse of spiritual knowledge to fall back on for sustained creativity. While we had the influence of Picasso, Impressionists, and Fauvists etc. on our artists, there was a group of artists who looked for the inspiration in Indian spiritual knowledge. Tantric art was brought in focus by a seminal work by Ajit Mukherjee and the floodgates of spiritual art were opened by many an Indian artists in 1960’s. Leading the movement were artists like Biren De, G.R.Santosh, K.S. Panniker, J. Swaminthan Om Prakash; a later convert was Paris based S.H. Raza. Viswanadhan who had arrived in Paris with his Tantric oeuvre moved away to pure abstraction. Thus Indian spiritual heritage came to rekindle the flame of creativity of modern Indian artists.
Pankaj Aggarwal a Delhi based artist is a votary of the spiritual art of India. His present works in the exhibition presented by Studio Vasant Delhi carry iconic emblems drawn from the rich cultural heritage of India. In some of his paintings he uses explicit imagery of gods and goddesses. But his tour de force is in works where he works abstracts using spirals, circles, coiled forms or surrealistic imagery. He combines with artistic ease elements of Tantric vocabulary and religious symbolism with sublimating imagery that touches your inner core—your spiritual core. His art is a reaffirmation of the continuing power that Indian spiritual heritage exerts on our collective psyche alongside or inspite of the new global culture. This should assuage the feelings of those who fear that Indian art and culture would be inundated if the floodgates of globalisation are opened.

Vijay Kumar
Director Curator
European Artists’ Association
Germany

Uploaded

March 6th, 2009