'Shrine' breathes life into religious sites across India

Several years of experimentation with the forms of Durga, Kali and Krishna led Sanjay Bhattacharya to visit numerous holy shrines across the country, until one fine day he realized that God's abode intrigued him as much as God himself.

The Bengal born painter's latest solo show "Shrine", featuring 14 works of art at the Visual Arts Gallery here, breathes life into these religious sites as he recreates them beyond their "stone and mortar" structures.

"Shrines are the abodes of divinity, and hence are supposedly charged with the divine current, and the prayers and aspirations of the crowds that throng them," Bhattacharya told PTI.

The exhibits are in multiple media -- photographs, drawings, digital works and oil paintings -- and created using a rich color palette.

The red piercing gaze of the Kali figurine at Kolkata's Kalighat temple only gets sharper against the black of the touchstone that makes the idol, and the long protruding golden tongue renders the divine touch.

Red is also his choice of color for his painting of the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati.

The cluster of golden temple bells at the bottom of the painting that appears to be ringing, almost maddeningly, together with the image of a dreadlocked sadhu offering obeisance is nothing less than eerie.

"Every one of them (the shrines) is imbued with a specific flavor in terms of colors and sounds, emanating from the rituals and practices," said the Delhi-based Bhattacharya.

The blues of the waters at Golden Temple in Amritsar and the ochre hues of Bodh Gaya in Bihar have a more calming effect.

But Bhattacharya's works do not just capture the deity or the structure that houses it.

"The repetition of acts of piety as well as the assured presence of the divine confers the air of the shrines with the ability to kindle religious fervor in many," the artist said.

He has dissected many of his artworks into panels to show the rituals as well as the spiritual and socio-political legacies that have been kept alive within these shrines.

"The simple act of bending before the supreme presence is enacted countless times within the hallowed boundaries and the sanctum sanctorum.

"I wanted to get the ambiance of shrines, so I combined different elements and placed them (into these panels) according to my composition," he explained.

The Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh also features in Bhattacharya's latest exhibition, which will come to a close on September 29.