Welcome to ‘Jiva’, an exhibition exalting the splendour and timeless essence of nature, interwoven with the mythic narratives of India's Puranas. Within this collection, Ompal Sansanwal, a recipient of the National Award, invites viewers into a realm where trees transcend mere botanical subjects to embody epic tales and symbolic creatures.
Ompal Sansanwal is a pilgrim of the garden of trees. His love for the banyan tree propels him to roam Indian forests and quench his thirst as he translates his surroundings into private reflections.
Jiva is as much about the arboreal realm as it is about man. Split into portraits of men and sentient animals, Sansanwal plays with the conceptual image of the tree as metaphor and allegory, translating its symbolism into the essence of humanity. Sansanwal’s lexicon is Plato’s teaching that humans are plants in reverse—rooted in the celestial ground.
Inspired from the tales of the Puranas, his compositions of Govardhan, Shiva, Nandi and Krishna following in divine dictates are works of both reverence as well as the alchemy of divine inkling. In this mythos series, it is the Nataraja that stands in poetic pensiveness as Lord of the dance.
The blending of botanics, art, and spiritual connotations in these paintings is punctuated by his impeccable sense of contour in threaded branches, lithe leaves and colour proficiency in rendering crowds and animated scenes.
For Sansanwal, trees convey profound truths about the passage of time.
The Swiss-German author Hermann Hesse said: ‘Trees are sanctuaries.’ Transpose this to humans; great humans become like tall trees who leave footprints on the sands of time.
