‘Shunyata’: Abhay K’s Exhibition On In The Capital Till 10 September, 2024

An exhibition of paintings by Indian poet-diplomat Abhay K titled ‘Shunyata’ has been open at Alliance Francaise in the national capital since 4 September, 2024 and will be on display till 10 September, 2024.

The exhibition explores the Buddhist philosophy of ‘Shunyata’ or ‘Emptiness’ in which understanding emptiness becomes vital for liberation from suffering and samsara–the cycle of birth and death.

Speaking about the exhibition, Abhay K said, “When I stared at the empty canvas, I had no clue what I was going to paint. I started by making a circle and filling it with paint and it started taking form. Each time a new form took shape on the canvas, I felt mesmerised. I started enjoying the process.”

He further added, “These paintings are visualisations of emptiness. Forms are visible when one looks at them closely, but as one moves away from them, forms disappear and what remains is emptiness, a true validation of the crux of the Heart Sutra — ‘form is emptiness, emptiness is form’. The forms that appear are mere approximations of figures familiar and unfamiliar, gods and goddesses, mortals and immortals, plants and animals. They are all transient. They appear and then vanish. Emptiness remains.”

Abhay K is a poet, editor, translator, artist and diplomat. He is the author of several poetry collections and the editor of six books, including ‘The Book of Bihari Literature’. His poems have appeared in over a hundred literary magazines across the globe and his ‘Earth Anthem’ has been translated into over 160 languages.

He received the SAARC Literary Award (2013) and was invited to record his poems at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC (2018). His translations of Kalidasa’s Meghaduta and Ritusamhara from Sanskrit won him the KLF Poetry Book of the Year Award (2020-21). His translation of the Magahi novel Fool Bahadur has been published by Penguin Random House, India.

His artistic journey began in 2005 in Moscow, Russia. Since then he has exhibited his artworks in Paris, St Petersburg, New Delhi, Brasilia and Antananarivo, some of which are in private collections across the world.

Commenting on Abhay K’s artworks, Yamini Dand Shah, a curator at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Mumbai said, “Suprematism is at its best here…as Malevich deconstructed art itself. It illuminates the urge for expansion of art practice, ideation, perspectives and conviviality. The paradigm of planetism, Vasudhaiva Kutambakam are not only tropes for art exhibits but translate into a worldview that Abhay K inhabits and enables others to envision.”

“Abhay’s artworks address realised worldly issues with a sense of introspection,” said Rajeev Lochan, Former Director, National Gallery of Modern Art, India.

Commenting upon Abhay’s artworks Russian art critic Stanislav Savitsky said, “Abhay K creates an allegory of planetary consciousness – emblems of the unity of the peoples. He draws images of spiritual unity, a futuristic reworking of figurative and suprematic motives.” 

EE News Desk

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