BUDDHA, An Art Exhibition by Menakshi Aggarwal, September 10-15, 2015 Lalit Kala Academy
BUDDHA An exhibition of paintings by Meenakshi Aggarwal
Date : 10th – 15th September 2015
Time : 11.00 am – 7.00 pm
Venue : Lalit Kala Academy (Gallery 3), Copernicus Marg, New Delhi – 110 001
An air of serenity envelopes the entire oeuvre of Meenakshi Aggarwal’s paintings, dedicated to Buddha in His myriad forms and associations. During her travels in India and Southeast Asia, the image of Buddha held great fascination for the soft-spoken artist, as she subconsciously made notes of its many manifestations around her. Meenakshi chose to bring out the infinite compassion and wisdom of Gautama pictorially.
The paintings comprise of Buddha figures in meditative modes, as well as introspective Buddha heads, rendered delicately in pastel hues of greens, blues, and browns. They owe substantially to the idealized, Greco Roman types of the Gandhara school with their chiseled features, finely-molded noses, smiling mouths and elegantly arranged hair. The brushwork alternates between application of diaphanous films of colour to more dramatic contrasts of light and shade. The lotus flower– a symbol of purity, kindness and knowledge, has been incorporated in singles or multiples with the central image. The presence of the Enlightened One is also delineated by symbols—the Bodhi tree, doves, the eloquent dharmachakra mudra of hands or the anointed feet, pada imprinted by the triratna and chakra symbols. Arabesques of lotus and other floral blooms inspired from the ancient classical tradition of Ajanta murals augment the grace and elegance of the Buddha figures. For Meenakshi, painting Buddha has been not only an enriching journey of absorbing legends and iconography, but also a voyage of self-discovery.
