A very calligraphic Christmas

With Christmas just around the corner, a new exhibition here retells different events from the life of Jesus Christ through the uncanny medium of pictorial calligraphy.
Titled "Three Wise Men to the Tree of Celebration - Journey of a Breath," the exhibition by artist Poosapati Parameshwar Raju is a narrative in calligraphy that unveils the main incidents reflecting the life of Jesus and Christian symbolism in about 45 paintings.
"I wanted to do something for December and I thought the best thing would be Christmas and this is in remembrance to the convent school where I studied in in Khurda in Odisha," he says.

The exhibition is on show at the Art Spice Gallery at the Metropolitan Hotel and Spa here.
Raju, who started off his career in calligraphy with the written word and has shifted to pictorial calligraphy only recently, specializes in the art of Pothi writing, the traditional way of writing scriptures.
Prior to this project, he has worked on several mythological series including the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. He is currently working on a series on the names of Allah.

Besides the representations of different symbols from Christianity like the Thorn Crown, the Tree of Celebration, the Sacred Heart, and the Cross with Bread and Wine, Raju has also depicted the landmark incidents from Christ's life which are now marked as important days on the calendar.

Some of them include the Birth of Jesus, Baptism of Christ, Jesus washing his disciple's feet, the Last Supper, Crucifixion of Christ and his Resurrection.
The artist has on display three different versions of the Last Supper.
"First I made the traditional one which is supposed to be the oval table. When I was doing that, people wanted to see how it looked straight, because that is how the last supper was painted. So that's how the other two came about," he says.
To distinguish Jesus from other figures in the paintings, he has made a circular ring around the head representing the Christ's halo.

Raju who practices the Devnagri script uses a right slant nip that has a typical character of a "thin thick thin stroke."
A closer look at Raju's paintings show that all figures are made in a single stroke, transforming from a thorn in one painting to Jesus himself in another.
Raju says that he has attempted to digress from the
traditional measurements that are used in calligraphy and tried to approach the art form in a minimalistic way by using only red archival ink on white archival paper.
"What I have tried to achieve in my work is simplification to the maximum. Earlier it used to be the same nib but it used to have the traditional measurements. But then I jumped from it to make it simpler so that it could be as simple as writing a script," he says.

Talking about why he chose to work in red and white, he says, "First of all, among all cultures, red is spirituality and happiness and white is peace and tranquility. But here, I started using red because in the design practice when you use red, it tells you exactly when to stop when to add a little more for the weightage.
If it is very heavy red, it will be very vulgar and if it is very less in comparison to the paper, then it looks very faint and dull, but if it is proportionate, it is very pleasing to the eyes. It needs that correct combination of the red mass on paper," he explains.

The exhibition is set to be on view till January 12 next year.