The desire and the ability to translate religious experience into and through artistic production has been the impetus for the creative process for as long as man has lived on earth. This religious experience finds sublimation in the creation of murals, paintings and sculptures and indeed entire edifices.
Devotion, a group show curated by Sushma Bahl, seeks to bring this into the contemporary realm, with over 20 artists exploring the same through their own respective genres, style and imagery.
Religious sentiment and experience is translated with ease through figurative paintings, one of the most arresting of which, is a stark presentation of a Yogini standing on one leg over an inert shadowy dark form of Shiva/Purusha by Arpana Caur. The cosmic energy matrix in orange and yellow with sparse use of white and black lines and forms emphasises the powerful calm of austerity; the ritual practice.
The truly meditative streak comes through in some works where traditional iconography is incorporated and new iconography invented each blending seamlessly with the other as in Sidharth’s rendering of the Ganga. A plethora of aquatic forms inhabit the body of this androgynous form, flowing down history, culture and environment. This indirect invocation of divinity in the created is quite in contrast with the more familiar rendering of the deities that we see in commercially oriented and populist art.
It is in the abstract that rendering of mystical moments is difficult to read, though abstraction is more suited to the evocation of the spiritual and emotional state of being. Anwar through a muted palette of grey and black creates an aura of the stillness of meditative calm.
Faith and devotion are transformative catalytic agents that alter the personality or the imagination of the devotee. Whether it is the inner calm of the Sarnath Buddha or the majesty of the vision behind the Descent of the Ganga at Mamallapur, the art created by a true sadhaka-artist has the ability to leave a lasting impression on the viewer. The fundamental question being asked of art today is whether it has the same power or impact wherein a view of the painting or sculpture does not entail mere seeing but partaking with the ‘artist-see-er’ and thus a body-soul altering experience.
The writer is an art historian, curator and critic