A day before the opening of Satish Gupta’s new show, we look at the artist behind the works and the philosophy of Zen that drives him
Satish Gupta’s work titled Brahmand
Revisiting a beach in France’s Normandy nearly seven years ago, artist Satish Gupta took up a vantage point to paint the rough sea. He had previously visited spots like this in France as a student in 1970. Filling his canvas with the view before him, he noticed his friend, who had driven him to the beach, meditating in the midst of high crashing waves. This moment ushered him along in his journey to understand and embrace Zen. Speaking about his latest show Zen Thunder Zen Silence, a limited edition of works presented in the city at Jehangir Art Gallery after a gap of seven years, Gupta concurs, “The show is about our choice to stay calm, observe, learn from experiences and move forward. It started at Normandy that [the moment] was a turning point to understand how we can deal with such situations.”
The Wandering Cloud
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Gupta’s tryst with Zen, however, began nearly 40 years ago, when he came across a book by Paul Reps called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones in a second-hand bookstore around the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris. The book, Gupta shares, answered questions floating around in his mind, posed many others, and set him off on his ‘Zen journey’, adding, “Zen has kept me alive, and moving forward; this perspective of being aware of the moment and the transient nature of everything, seeing that the ultimate reality is much larger than what we perceive.”
Awakening
He carries this philosophy of Zen to the process of art marking. About the moments that led him to the creation of Brahmand, a new sculpture that will be displayed at the show along with other latest works including Zenga, and The Wandering Cloud, he recalls the experience of having his priceless antique sculptures stolen from his Delhi studio. “Soon after that, Brahmand and other works were created from that experience and journey of forgiveness and letting go,” he shares. The large sculpture includes a gold seed or sphere, plated with multiple layers of gold, and surrounded by ‘waves of the cosmic ocean of nothingness, capturing the moment of contemplation before the beginning of time. Contemplation and celebration of celestial beauty are reiterated in the copper sculpture The Wandering Clouds which highlights recurring motifs in Gupta’s work, clouds and the moon.
Satish Gupta
The artworks offer a similar experience for viewers, as the process of creation, he shares, “The work can be viewed as windows for meditation; you can get into the work and transcend into another frame of mind.” The materials the artist works with play a visceral role in Gupta’s approach to his canvas. He refers to copper, the foundation of many of his works, as a noble metal — tough yet pliable. Instead of the richness of gold and silver, he highlights their intrinsic purity. In the paintings Awakening and Healing Sounds, Gupta’s work moves in a new direction with a marriage between gold leaf placed on the canvas treated with ink and calligraphy.
The show will be inaugurated with an invite-only Bharatnatyam performance by legend, Leela Samson. The dance will interpret the artist’s showcase on the lawns of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, where his sculpture The Buddhas Within is also on display.
On: November 21 to November 27; 11 am to 7 pm
At: Jehangir Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda, Fort.
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