"Metamorphosis", Oil on Canvas by Manav Gupta

"Umbilical Cords and the rainforests",  5ft x 4 ft , signature series , oils, acrylics & watercolors, Manav Gupta 

note on style

source: extracts:

1: “exploring earth’s elements” critique, Asian Age, Uma Nair

2: “an inward attunement “essay, Keshav Malik

Manav Gupta’s art, facing both forwards and inwards, is a contemplation of spiritual and the natural communion. And so, his images act as a vehicle of a visionary world that is itself the instrument of self-transcendence.. His work has undergone a notable change and much development. The maturation is palpable.

Working in a wide range now from the conceptual to multimedia, installations to ambient spaces, the canvas to sculptures, he puts the medium to fresh creative tasks. Technically, as far as color and light goes, he is highly professional. Moreover he has a precise understanding of color as the language with which nature tries to communicate meanings and values. For him color is a function of sight- implying a sun- like quality in the eye. 

Here then is a silent discourse on the music of colors. In this way, visually he works out notes and scales to produce melody and harmony. One can follow Manav’s development from color harmonies of great refinement even in his earlier work- on to a progressive liberation of light from the object, or perhaps the resolution of the object into light in some of his latest installations and conceptual work.

Series:Rainforests , Manav Gupta

Informed by profound intuition Manav’s pictorial language emerges from and surmounts the creative process to exist objectively The painter’s technical knowhow, as a colorist, is not deployed for its own sake, but because his technique has its own meditative content.

Through his external senses the artist is able to perceive the visible world. Through his internal senses he tries to perceive the microcosm, including the twin level of body and soul- an awakening to a more elevated plane of living.

Finally, his “umbilical chord-rainforest” symbolizes an epiphany of the   universe continually opening up from sacred source, the centre of the birth of life. An epiphany of which it is both an expression and symbol.

The physical interface of global warming, Man’s interference with earth’s natural ecosystems, disregard to environment consciousness by Man has all impacted the artist deeply over the years.

Series:Rainforests , Manav Gupta

Just as his artist’s statement highlights "As I scrape the bottom of the soul for some ingredients the only way I can explain to myself, about what it all is, is to believe that in some past life (if there is one), I belonged to the rainforests. The mantra there, for survival, is to submit to the natural forces, bow before it, respect its ways, learn and grow. You cannot defy it or go against it. In the rainforests there are labyrinthine darknesses weaving around you but there is always light in streaks, in a glow, in a stream, sunlight…all of which brings hope. You don't bathe in it all the time but it seeks you out. Man is but a speck. The human race, still a speck, in this mighty universe rich with millions of secrets. The rainforests teach you this," he states.

"When I paint, what transcend on the canvas are the hope and the power of the eternal truths of nature's emblematic symbols," he says. Adding, "Light, for me is — Hope and Colour — the Universe in which it exists."

This is when, for him, this world loses its meanings. The larger one takes over and he paints.

Series:Rainforests , Manav Gupta