The zen of Buddha artworks

I have often remarked in jest that the number of Buddhas I have seen in various shapes, postures and sizes in India certainly outnumbers the Buddhas in the entire Buddhist belt! I wonder what is it that attracts artists into creating and entices audiences into dotting their living and work spaces with the Buddha icon Even those who shy away from keeping sculptures of other especially Hindu deities, are happy to plonk Buddhas everywhere from swimming pools to living rooms!

While I have nothing against the icon or his iconography, but the sheer number of boring times one comes across it, makes one want to yawn! Also because the interpretations and facial expressions are not rooted in the Indian historical references and are mostly derived from other far and south eastern cultures like Thai, Sinhalese, Japanese, Tibetan and really speaking don’t strike a chord. After all I too am guilty of bringing a finely decorated wooden Buddha form Thailand tucked into my hand luggage once, so why laugh at others !

Given this mindset, I went to see artist Satish Gupta’s show Zen Space with least expectations and returned impressed with his highly fine tuned aesthetics and the sense of peace he is able to convey through his Buddhas. Save for his Rajasthan series, which I found aesthetically far too aggressive for my liking, I have always liked his work. His subtle colour palette, his sense of fine layers that beckon the onlooker into their folds and in the last few exhibitions, the spectrum of Buddha iconography or rather the breadth of vision that Satish brings to his work is rather admirable. He takes it many steps forward in this show.

The sense of calm that is Satish’s hallmark and how he is able to create an expanse from the smallest, like a world from an atom is so incredible that it takes your breath away by the thought. And yet, the size of the works remains at the human scale in the sense that their attempt is not to dwarf you but to elevate you on the wings of the Zen space. His present work The Buddhas Within that is easily the obvious piece de resistance of the show is a breathtakingly large sleeping Buddha’s head (23x13.5x9 feet) reclined at an angle that has a surprise element. For on the reverse, Buddha’s head is scooped out like a cave, its inner walls replete with rows of Buddhas almost as if like a rock edict. Set amidst these rows sprawls the figure of a gilded sleeping Buddha. The philosophy behind it is charming as it is beautiful – of the many Buddha’s that live in the Godhead, the nishkam karm yoga, the sthitapragya, the sleep as a meditative element all this and more.

In another work, Surrender, a gracefully aerodynamic Garuda measuring 12 x 16 x 9 feet to understand the sheer magnitude of his perspective, is poised almost to take off. Despite its size, this sculpture exhibits a suggestion of lightness, the possibility of flight that is more real than imagined. Then there are the profoundly moving sculptures Shunya and Meditations on a Mandala, each a masterpiece of voids and solids, a Buddha cut from a metal sheet of Buddhas and suspended from a metal rope, to merge one moment and emerge the next, a point of mediation and meditation.

However, given my propensity to shy away from the obvious — not to be difficult, I assure you, but that is simply me — the work that appealed to me the most in the show was the Zen Forest. Bamboo shaped thicket with Tibetan calligraphy inscribed on it, complete with steel shining like water, copper pebbles with the name inscribed on it, as one walks through the work, one comes across almost as it by surprise, the Buddha deep in meditation shining like gold. Again the allegory is obvious but the musicality of the piece was so extraordinary that I left my heart in the thicket.

In addition to these large pieces, Satish is showing a collection of haikus, presented in his characteristic and visually rich calligraphic style like on some really gorgeous works on paper.

“You are welcome to your mansions and palaces, “The empty sky belongs to me” and “Each person’s silence is unique, just like his voice”, captures the subtle nuances of the Zen philosophy that the artist practices. These haikus are autobiographical as they trace his journey and act as records of the most transforming moments. But then Satish is master at creating these delicate flower like works that are fragrant and yet replete with meaning.

For once the Buddhas didn’t make me baulk – and none is more delighted than yours truly!

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com