Portraits of trees by Ompal Sansanwal

Ompal Sansanwal paintings at Jiva exhibition in Bikaner House, Delhi
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Artist Ompal Sansanwal can’t wait for his exhibition Jiva to open at Bikaner House on Saturday evening. For the last 15 years, he has been building a body of work comprising 60 paintings that capture the magic and majesty of trees.

“I grew up in the verdant gardens of Katwaria Sarai in Delhi in the seventies; I have vivid memories of my mother taking me out for walks daily; we would sit under a large Banyan tree and she would narrate to me the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata,” says Ompal, who little realised then that the timeless allure of Nature was silently shaping the artist in him.

After graduating from the Delhi College of Art, he held several solo shows at the Museum Gallery, Mumbai; LTG Gallery and Shridharani Gallery, Delhi, besides group shows at the Nehru Center in London, and Yugoslavia. Yet the recipient of the 2022 National Award says Jiva is going to be one of his most captivating exhibitions ever since he took a break from solos in 2009.

At 60, the contemporary artist has returned with 60 exquisite paintings in acrylic, pen and ink detailing the cross-hatching technique, used by many Renaissance painters to create a unique texture and collection of artworks blending classical Asian methods and themes and Western modern techniques

“Ompal’s artworks stir you and every visitor will go back with different levels of experiences,” says curator Uma Nair, who has also come out with an enchanting coffee table book Meditations on Trees that features the paintings to be showcased at the exhibition. The book published by Aleph, in association with the Black Cube Art Gallery and the Namtech Art Foundation, will be launched by Ratish Nanda, renowned Indian conservation architect and CEO of Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

Caring for Earth

“Trees are the lungs of the world and the exhibition has an ecological echo; it is a happy coincidence that the artist is exhibiting his paintings in April when the world is observing Earth month,” says Nair.

“Every time I look at a tree, I search for forms that relate to human figures; there is an interconnectedness between man and Nature,” says Ompal who accentuates the long intertwining roots of trees and its branches dense with foliage with diverse patterns of thread-like filaments in his signature style to tell a distinct story.

There is a subtle yet powerful inspiration underpinning Ompal’s art. The earthy to bright harmonious colours that infuse his canvases with imagination and deep reflection with the tree in the centre make a mesmerising spectacle.

Tagore, for him, is a tall tree who lives on for his contributions and Ompal has made a singular portrait of the poet as a monochromatic study. “It is an emotive essence of deep intensity,” he says of his works that took him not less than two to three months each.

One of the largest panels that took him seven months is a masterpiece measuring 8 feet by 4 feet. It depicts his childhood memory of lots of trees, his metaphor for life, with a diversity of flora and fauna and spaces around them. “It is in that inherent beauty of spaces in Nature that the spiritual or mythological forms manifest,” he says.

Ompal’s paintings tell stories of man’s symbiotic bonds with Nature; they take different shapes to tell the story of Krishna holding aloft the Govardhan Hill or Christ’s Last Supper, of Shiva and Parvati’s wedding, or even the Kurukshetra war.

“Ompal is a pilgrim who finds trees of his sensibility and sensitivity. When you look at them in his paintings, you feel a deep sense of spiritual aura,” says Nair. “When I draw the trees, they come out in a meditative form as the cradle of existence,” Ompal adds.

Jiva is on display till May 3, at Main Art Gallery, Bikaner House (near India Gate); 11am to 7pm