For a long time M. Lokeswara Rao chose to depict the environs of forests on his canvases he clearly knew on account of being an Indian Forest Service Officer. Moving on to fresher subjects, the IFS officer-cum-painter has based his latest set of works on Buddha. This collection was recently showcased at the Tea Lounge in Taj Palace.
“The first thing that Buddha does to one is bring peace of mind. To quote Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, ‘We live in an age of conflict and war, of hatred and violence, all over the world. Never before has the need been greater for all of us to remember the immortal message of Lord Buddha’,” says Rao explaining his theme. For Rao, Buddhism is an institution and not just a religion. On display were 30 works in acrylic, each inspired by different symbols of Buddhism like conch, lotus, unending knot, dharma chakra etc.
Buddha Abhishekam, one of Rao’s favourites, had Buddha with kesar and chandan water, falling on his head, with some leaves of peepal tree in the background. One of the works was just done in dots sans any lines for which the artist had used acrylic glitters. For another favourite work of his ‘Buddha Pada’, he says, “Buddha did not visit some of the countries where Buddhism was preached so they took Buddha’s feet with them, and it signified the unending knot.” Lotus was a recurring motif in many of the works. The painting with four lotuses was inspired from Tibetan Buddhism which signifies the change in our state of minds from stressful to peaceful ones.
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