Poosapati Parameshwar Raju’s calligraphy works depict the birth of the Christ and the Three Wise Men who came to bless baby Jesus
To a layman, the strokes appear simple but the artist likens these thin-thick-thin lines to the beginning, continuance and end of life. The ongoing exhibition at Art Spice Gallery at the Metropolitan Hotel titled Three Wise Men to the tree of celebration; Journey of a Breath is all about calligraphy. Through strokes of red artist Poosapati Parameshwar Raju depicts the story and life of Jesus Christ in lucid, pictorial style.
The collection stems from his childhood memories when he studies at St Vincent Convent, where he often visited the church. That has now gained a visual form. Mythologies and narratives play a pivotal role in his works. Not just as a point of reference but as an engagement to excavate forms from within. Moving away from the confines of basic calligraphy, he combines his sense of liberation with calligraphy delivering an idea embedded in the visual. Narrating complex episodes in his simple minimalist visualisations ensues. His work imbibes a sense of presence that enables viewers to be familiar with events and happenings from the past.
The artist’s works reflect the notion of present-ism and eternal-ism in its ordering of realities in a cerebral manner. As a presentist, his works convey the thought that at a certain time certain things exist and others do not. This is the only reality one can deal with. And in an alignment to an eternist thought he believes that time is an aspect of reality and equals to the three spatial dimensions — past, present and future and because of this, all things that are once experienced or brought to conscious knowledge is just as real as things in the present are.
Raju has travelled extensively within the country and overseas and he refers to the study of traditional texts that explains that the universe goes through repeated cycles of creation, destruction and rebirth, with each cycle lasting 4,320,000 years.