The group show, The Seeker and the Sought, traverses Advaita Vedanta and Sufism. By Team Viva
Soul-searching is the leitmotif of any artist. But when it combines with philosophies, you get a show like The Seeker and The Sought. A group show, the 22 participating artists believe that their paintings are a journey, one that has taken them to places and more often than not, brought them back to themselves.
There’s a prevailing sense of contentment and completion. Curated by Monica Jain, the artists have interpreted Advaita Vedanta and Sufism through paintings, sculptures, photographs and installations at the indoor gallery space and the outdoor open-air space of Art Centrix Space.
“The show is a search for the eternal fragrance of peace that, at some level, all of us search for. On the opening night of this show, there was a performance by painter and dancer Shruti Gupta Chandra. It depicted the dilemma of Yashodhara, the wife of Gautam Buddha.
Having attained enlightenment, Buddha goes back to the palace he shunned in search of alms. Yashodhara is elated and joyous but when she greets him, she finds she has nothing to offer him. She then gives him their son as alms. The seeker Siddharth, who left the palace, upon his return has become the sought,” says Monica.
When asked about twinning Advaita and Sufi philosophies, she says that while these two among others have made a deep impression on her persona, it can’t be said that they necessarily better explain this search. “As a curator I have to a strike a fine balance between thoughts and visuals. Somehow at this stage, I felt a very strong pull and whenever I would think of meditative works or musings through art, this is where my thoughts would lead me. I suppose we all have a stage in our life where some influences are strong,” she adds.
She believes that it’s possible to meditate through art as an artwork is the culmination of thoughts, a search for answers that an artist seeks and at the final moment when he puts down his chisel or brush, he has found what he has been looking for. “Existence is awareness or more appropriately true existence would be awareness. What we commonly may know as existence is the circle or birth and death, seeing and experiencing what is around us. It’s the object, thought and sensation that we can perceive and seem to know and understand.”
She continues: “In his or her unique way of thought, style and visual language, each artist has interpreted the theme to integrate their works with it after which as a curator my task was to create a seamless energy flow of these thoughts so that they may be understood or felt by the viewer.”
Artist Ritu Kamath, through her stylised, linear patterns and images, has delved into the concept through an exploration of the human consciousness or what goes on in a person’s mind. Her small works, acrylics on canvas, show figures with flowering heads as thoughts or even wires, networks and cables stemming from the head. Shobha Broota’s work singularly represents the central theme. The show concluded on December 31.