Two moods, two mediums, one underlying theme

 Kishore Thukral’s photo show ‘ephemera…’ captures Life and Nature through lens and verse

New Delhi, Jan 18: A quintessential backpacker who loved to trek in the Himalayas, Kishore Thukral barely realized his frequent trysts with the mountains were giving him a perspective of life and an overpowering itch for its articulation.

So the Delhi-based artist picked not one but two powerful mediums — camera and poetry — to portray and unravel the mysteries of life he experienced in the lap of Nature and in the maelstrom of urban life.

Kulu valley, Himachal Pradesh, India (October 2011).

The result is a pioneering solo photography show “ephemera…”, which is also the name of his book of verse — the two being in a perfect symmetry with the cardinal Buddhist principle that everything is transient; decadence underpins even the grandest in Nature and the most superlative in human life.

The week-long exhibition, which was opened by well-known music composer Shantanu Moitra in the presence of renowned actress-painter-photographer Deepti Naval at India Habitat Centre on Wednesday, is both a visual grandeur and an experiential journey hurtling through an angst-ridden, chaotic life in an urban set up.

The middle-aged visual artiste notes the camera became “a tool to aid my memory” much later after he developed keenness to visit the upper Himalayas, opening a whole new view to places and vision about life at large. “Often memory fails; all that remains is a photograph. At times photographs fade, memory doesn’t. Together they are like night and day – two parts of a whole.”

The exhibition, which showcases 73coloured pictures from ‘thousands and thousands’ shot by the artist over a span of 15 years, focuses on the transient nature of life shot through diverse geographies — from Ladakh to Nepal, from Mauritius to Japan, from Spiti to Cambodia.

“All creations are in colour. I don’t have the right to change it,” says the artiste, explaining the absence of pictures in black and white.

Particularly mesmerising are the images of an old bespectacled lady (Solang Nala, Manali), an aged woman with creases on her face (Bangkok), four Buddha sculptures from the Bayon temple, Angkor (Vietnam) – all regal, serene but decaying. Then there are the pictures of a cock as if in a meditation outside a temple in Nepal; the panoramic view of Kulu Valley;  the windswept Landour; the shimmering sunrays in Naini lake; a hot air balloon suspended among the clouds in Solang, a tree stump decaying in Naini lake, and a bus stuck in a landslide at Kinnaur – all of these have a certain magical quality about them with a profound philosophy lurking everywhere.

“My inquisitiveness to know more about the Himalayan habitation led me to grasp the essence of the faith of its people, their monasteries and temples—and art in its entirety. My rambles in the mountains led me to water, water to habitation, habitation to faith, faith to monasteries and temples, monasteries and temples to art,” points out Thukral, who has photographed some rare and ancient thangkas in small temples in Spiti

“My rambles led me to another realization…that, like a bubble in the water, like a flash of lightning, like a dewdrop on a blade of grass… everything is EPHEMERA. Nothing is here to stay.”

Front-ranked art historian and curator Alka Pande, who has curated the exhibition, says it is the Buddhist philosophy that permeates Thukral’s spectacular body of work. “But his signature lies in his very powerful single images. All images speak of little stories and capture relationship between his inner mindscape and external landscape. It is like a novella with many independent chapters in it.”

Particularly impressive are the fishing net from Cambodia and metro rail in Japan – a juxtaposition of tradition and modernity, of handmade and machine-made. There are also poetic images of trees and there are slices of life that speak of his passion and commitment to his craft, she points out.

The pictures have a common thematic feature binding them. The beauteous Nature and people in frames are refreshingly fascinating even as the camera seldom resorts to unconventional techniques.

Deepti Naval, who released the book, “ephemera…”, said the camera has become an inseparable part of Kishore. “I have seen him use it instinctually, like an artist handling his brush. Understandably, his photography is intuitive, not laboured…. Going through his book it becomes difficult to say whether it is his image or his words that are more evocative.”

The 198-page book has 171 photos in total, capturing the various moods of the mountains and life of the people. Impermanence is the over-arching idea conveyed in the book. The journey portrayed in the book is that of the author, but the clear suggestion is that “it is everybody’s”.

 

Naini Lake, Nainital, Uttrakhand (May 2014).

Thukral has a smashing reputation for shooting images related to Buddhist life and landscape upcountry, and has authored the book Spiti through Legend and Lore, which documents the legends and folklore of the valley both in text and in photographs. His other works include The Chronicler’s Daughter (2002), a novel. He has also the credit of compiling and editing Sharanam Gachhami: an Album of Awakening (Full Circle) in 2011, a coffee-table book of photographic interpretation on Buddhist principles, shot by 20 famous photographers, including Richard Gere, Raghu Rai and Steve McCurry.

 “…In this Cosmos of Eternity, what am I but mere EPHEMERA!” observes the poet-artist.

The exhibition will be on view till January 20 at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre before it shifts to the capital’s Taj Palace, T-lounge on 26^th January to 1^st February.