“A week in the Life of…” is an experimental segment we started on our Instagram page, that gives you a more intimate perspective of an artist’s works. A few behind the scenes moments, and a little bit of insight into the artist’s techniques.
Day 1- Having just completed his first solo show, “Song of Birds” in Ahmedabad’s Huthheesing Visual Art Centre, in almost ten years, Manish Chavda is most noted for the detailed way he paints his birds’ eyes in his paintings.He received his Diploma in Painting in 2002, and an Art Teacher’s Diploma in 2003. He has even been awarded the Gujarat State Lalit Kala Academy and Shree Manekaba Silver Medal in 2002.
Day 2- Chavda strives in meditation for communion with the absolute – a communion vouchsafed in rare flashes of blinding illumination. The experience indescribable in words, he evokes by painting in a slow, savoured process of rendering of a plant – a wild landscape or just some flora, his expression of the inner life of things and which could, in term, assist the viewers quest for enlightenment.
Day 3- Within his broad leaves, birds, a few animals inhabit a paintingat a time. The relationship between them becomes very special, almost revealing but not obvious. Their simplicity makes them seem natural and after we see them together, the associations are inseparable, the moon and the white champa, the cow and the single leaf, the squirrel and the small bird. Viewing the works diminishes our own size.
Day 4- Chavda does not limit himself to any sort of colour palette, allowing himself to explore every colour thoroughly. He plays around with the transparencies of his oil paints, layering leaves and animals, that create very intimate artworks of the fauna that almost seem to be hiding behind the leaves.
Day 5/6- The artist makes it a point to spend at least a month in the Himalayan ranges to experience tranquility. He spends his time in meditation and immerses himself in the beauty of nature around.
Using his spiritual understanding of inner self as a way to help his viewers find enlightenment through his paintings.
Artwork by Manish Chavda