The serene face of the Buddha is reflected in a row of paintings as though one has walked into a corridor of mirrors.
That is if each frame of the mirror is a splash of colours with its own sometimes abstract, sometimes spiritual motifs. This is the experience that the exhibition of paintings in acrylic titled “Buddha The Great”, a solo by IFS Officer M. Lokeshwara Rao, has to offer.
“Through the Buddha, I am symbolizing the peace that everybody needs in today’s world,” says Rao. “I don’t look at Buddhism as a religion but as one of the basic institutions which everybody likes. The first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of the Buddha is a sense of peace.”
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Rao’s Buddhas are colourful, to say the least, whether in terms of the profile itself or the background. He paints the Buddha in bright reds and blues, greens, yellows, sometimes using sparkling dots to compose the image. Or he places the icon in a background with motifs of spiritual significance like peepal leaves, quite often lotuses, conch shells or chakras.
Sometimes he merges the image of the Buddha with the background, keeping it abstract with criss-crossing colours in geometric patterns or infused with another image, like that of the burdened earth, as he verbally puts it.
He also, quite literally, offers an “abhishekam” (the devotional practise of pouring offerings over the deity being worshipped) to the Buddha, as he lets tendrils of colours snake down onto the icon.
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“In most depictions of the Buddha, it is usually his face that is depicted. I have tried to go deeper by incorporating Buddhist symbols like the chakra and the pada, apart from studying the Tibetan Buddhist concepts on attaining nirvana,” explains the artist, for whom painting is a passion.
“I like painting in my free time, I find it satisfying and soothing.”
His largest painting (of 48” x 72”) in the exhibition is that of Buddha attaining nirvana, deep in meditation under the tree , palms clasped over his legs folded in the lotus pose.
“Buddha The Great” will be on view today at Gallery 4, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Kumara Krupa Road. For details, contact 23385767 or 9972169270.