Light and darkness
Amongst the various formative elements of a photograph, a key component is the restriction and flow of light falling on a light-sensitive surface. The distinguishing mark of a photographer is how he or she uses light. The choice of subject is vital as are the technical and creative components of composition, framing and the like. What sets
Pankaj Mistry apart in his show Reverie at Gallery Nvya is the very restrained use of light in the photographs. Sometimes this lends a certain heaviness or broodiness to his works but they retain an artistic quality. The artist uses ‘light as an abstraction tool to visually communicate the time and space.” Pankaj Mistry’s lightscapes are therefore evocative rather than provocative.
One such controlled and calm image, Profiles of Eternity, is a close up of the repetitive registers of the mouldings of temple. A temple that is built in the image of man mirrored in the foundational vastupurushamandala, and is cast in stone, based on eternal faith. The silhouette in background of the bhadra or the main projection acts as a shadow of timelessness.
The subjects are varied, ranging from the interior of the basilica in Goa, the mukhamandapa of a temple, the interiors of a kitchen to the mysterious sheets of a dark lake. Whatever be the locale of the shot, the photographs evoke an emotional response in the viewer, however thankfully the artist eschews sentimentality in his works.
The views are more often than not, un-peopled spaces, be these streets, buildings of landscapes. Human presence is felt through the absence, through the detritus of habitation and departure. Even when there is presence be it of a pujari or of a lady selling the accruements of puja, there is an aura of stillness, solitude and silence like an ever expanding sheet of flood waters or vibrations in space.
Perhaps this element becomes the dominant strain in his work because he meditates on the subject before he photographs it. Within a sea of images to choose from, Mistry precomposes his work. “I believe an artist has to be sensitive about himself and the surrounding to ‘pre visualise’ an image, as a sculptor would in a block of formless stone, or as a musician hears a note even before he plays or composes it.”
— The writer is an art historian, curator and critic
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