Artist Rita Jhunjhunwala and photographer Shreekant Somany celebrate the five elements — earth, water, fire, air and ether — through mixed media works on paper inspired by Benaras and photographs shot in Ladakh and Tibet. By Team Viva

A photograph is worth a thousand words and a painting compels you to read between the lines. However, what has been considered historically as two competing forms of art is now becoming an alliance of vision with each art form influencing the other in myriad ways. Artist Rita Jhunjhunwala and photographer Shreekant Somany collaborate to produce an evocative show titled Shunya — A Journey. Celebrating the five elements — earth, water, fire, air and ether — the show will include more than 60 exhibits showcasing Jhunjhunwala’s mixed media works on paper inspired by Benaras and Somany’s photographs shot in Ladakh, Tibet and all across the Pamir.

“I first visited Benaras when I was 19 and have been going back ever since. Even for a tourist, the city is a delight for the senses. And as an artist, I have never ceased to be amazed at how it makes me think about the cycle of birth and death every time. The philosophy of the city appeals to me because it compels me to think of us as part of the much bigger cosmos and how minuscule we are in comparison. Any imagination falls short of experiencing Benaras in reality — the city where the panchbhutas or five elements conspire to overwhelm the senses with an incredible force. That is why painting on the five elements was the most natural choice,” says Jhunjhunwala, 63.

Somany, an industrialist by profession, whose experience of trekking in the mountains and love for nature combined with a childhood passion for photography have led him to make a formal art debut with this show, shares a similar sentiment. “Meandering my way through the rugged landscapes of mountains offers me an innumerable number of picturesque opportunities. The sheer pristine and unseen magnificence of nature is a photographer’s paradise. How else could I show that we belong to nature and not vice versa if not through the five elements? My photographs in this show reveal how nature appears in its most mystical form on a daily basis,” says he. Indeed, the works reveal that we all have to undertake a journey of going from ‘being nothing to arriving at nothingness’, one that begins with shunya and aspires to end with it too.

Take, for instance, the photograph titled Air. “On the way from Darchen to Ali in Tibet, I saw the majestic peak through the eye of a brewing storm. It was a phenomenon worth stopping for and capturing,” says Somany. Jhunjhunwala, a recipient of the Soviet Land Nehru Award, depicts the movement of air in her painting by the same title through a sky brimming with the chatter of seagulls hovering around crowded boats and the floating scent of fresh marigolds and jasmines. In fact, both agree that the hardest element to portray was air and it is sheer imagination that brought this element to life.

The photograph Fire was shot on a winter morning flight to Leh. “I was looking at the hues of dawn, when the sun peeped from behind Nanda Devi, and all of a sudden the sky was sprayed with rays of eternal fire as though cleansing the environment,” recalls Somany. Fire, for Jhunjhunwala, is depicted through the consecrated flames of the huge oil lamps that circle around the priests in a holy dance amid ringing of bells and chanting of mantras.

The painting Water is naturally about the Ganga. “In this work, the mighty Ganga flows placidly past the busy ghats, pilgrims stand still with folded hands, doing their rituals. The boats and barges glide lazily upon its mighty expanse, matching its ebb and flow. This element is my favourite as there is so much serenity and calm in this experience,” says Jhunjhunwala. Somany’s photograph Water has been captured on the shores of the Mansarovar lake. “Water is the very element of our existence and salvation and the flight of this bird caught my frame symbolising peace and nirvana,” he says.

Earth depicts the rugged landscape of the greater Himalayas, majestic in its sculptured troughs and valleys with dry river beds, reminiscent of the earth’s existence through time while Ether depicts the mysteries of space. “To capture a monastery in the backdrop of the Milky Way in Tibet symbolises the connection of humans to ether and the unknown — the shunya,” says Somany. Earth for Jhunjhunwala is about the multi-hued landscape of Benaras while ether depicts the blue mist of the early morning sky. “Before turning vermillion, the misty blue mornings dreamily merge with the ethereal horizon to become one,” she explains.

Another highlight of the show are Somany’s portraits of an elderly man and woman shot in Kohima. These two have been also depicted through paintings by Jhunjhunwala, capturing intricately each crooked line and crevice of these faces. As Somany says, “Images through the lens are creative expressions reminiscent of a painter’s canvas. For the painter, the brush; for the photographer, the lens.” Indeed, the artists’ tools may vary, but the kaleidoscopic landscape of life provides an endless canvas of inspiration waiting to be expressed.”

(The exhibition will take place on January 4 till January 7 at Bikaner House Art Gallery, Pandara Road.)