Painted ambience of temples for artist Sanjay Bhattacharya's upcoming show

Renowned artist Sanjay Bhattacharya's larger-than-life canvasses may explore religious themes, but are far from being strictly representative images of shrines.

Ahead of his exhibition "Shrine", the artist said what interests him most is the ambience of a shrines.

"Shrine", a solo show of his drawings, photographs and paintings, will open at the India Habitat Centre (IHC) on Wednesday.

Stretching beyond the size of canvasses usually found in art galleries, these works explore the milieu around the Tirupati, Kalighat, Kamakhya temples, as also the Golden Temple, beyond their brick and mortar exteriors.

"There is no religion involved in my works. I wanted to do the ambience of those works, that is why there is no domination of the temple, but only a hint of it," the 60-year-old artist told IANS.

Giving an example of the essence he captured in his Kalighat painting, the Delhi-based artist said he saw people's belief in even a discarded idol there.

"I picked those elements which give the essence of the temple.

"In the painting, the deity idol is a thrown-away piece in the river beside the temple. Married Bengali women wear something called 'paula' on their wrists, and someone has offered their 'paula' to even a thrown-away idol. Such is the belief," he said.

The artist-poet, who visited these shrines for the first time to paint them, said he wanted to go beyond "just people doing 'puja'".

Bhattacharya, who is well-known for illustrating and painting the divine form, said he is more interested in the form and contour of the deity.

"For long, I had done gods and goddesses -- Kali, Krishna and more -- but not because of religious reasons. I love its form and contour," he said.

Why the big canvases?

"They are challenges, because otherwise it's easy to calculate the painting's perspective and balance, but once it's really large, you can't even see the other corner," he said, adding he relies on roughly scribbled lay-outs of his paintings to arrange the elements before painting them.

Also a photographer, Bhattacharya will also exhibit several of his works on the theme.

On the medium of photography, he said it's vastly different from painting because of its spontaneity.

"You have to click what you get. I like the instant results photographs give you, that's the 'mazza' (fun) of it."

The exhibition opens Wednesday and concludes on September 30.

--IANS

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