Select Artworks, Exhibitions & Auctions
PAINTINGS
Rainforests and the Circle of Life | Umbilical Cords of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Space | Lyrics of Light – Timeless Metaphors of Dreams
Non Limiting Horizons | Intimate Whispers | Shoonya- From Beyond
1996 - 2026
thirty years
Umbilical Cords of Earth
Watercolour on Paper
60 inches x 48 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series,
Roosevelt House, US Embassy, New Delhi
2001
Umbilical Cords of Earth 2
Acrylic on Canvas
60 inches x 48 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Fall/Winter Private Vernissage
New Delhi
2023
“Manav Gupta’s art, facing both forwards and inwards, is a contemplation of spiritual and the natural communion. And so, his images act as a vehicle of a visionary world that is itself the instrument of self-transcendence. His disposition is towards invoking the inner world of the soul as the stage of divine imminence. He puts the medium to fresh creative tasks. Technically, as far as color and light goes, he is highly professional. Moreover, he has a precise understanding of color as the language with which nature tries to communicate meanings and values. For him color is a function of sight – implying a sun-like quality in the eye. Here then is a silent discourse on the music of colors.“
Keshav Malik | Art Critic and Scholar
Critique – Excerpt from Essay on Manav Gupta
Non Limiting Horizons
Acrylic on Canvas
60 inches x 36 inches
Sold 🔴
Bonhams Auction: Lot No 75, Sold, June, 2007
Non Limiting Horizons - Timelessness
Acrylic on Canvas
58 inches x 48 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Manav Gupta is a Natural
“There have been critics who’ve praised him for his technique. But more often than not, what he has created has been the result of a storm within. His brush strokes have followed the dimensions of those restless stirrings. He is as close to nature as possible. All that he does comes from deep within. There’s nothing cosmetic about what he feels or what he does. Manav is Manav. Unique as ever. Truly. For, Manav’s quality isn’t just about a genius. It’s about how he feels and the shades of blue he seeks in the sky through his eyes. It’s about the grit and struggle of a man from humble circumstances. It’s about a man who hasn’t grown up breathing tinned air. It’s as easy as the flow of a deep river that meanders through a landscape and runs off to an unknown destination where it meets the horizon.”
Kingshuk Mukherjee, Asst Executive Editor, Times of India
Essay Excerpt | p 33, Christie’s Charity Auction, London, United Kingdom, 2010
Rainforests and the Timeless Metaphors of Dreams
Oil on Canvas
60 inches x 48 inches
Sold 🔴
Private Vernissage, New York, United States, 2015
Light before dawn, the rainforest secrets
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Online Private Auction, 2024
‘I started dreaming about rainforests early, when I was a child. I was a loner ever since my early childhood. When other children played, I used to rush to the trees in the National Library campus. I saw great poetry and lyricism in the roots, tree trunks and the barks of trees all around me. Sculpted forms of twisted branches that embraced the great banyan tree, triggered my imagination. I sat for hours beside it and sketched.
The othere favourite place to go to was my Guru’s abode. He used to talk about the forests of Bastar, and I used to sit and listen to the stories of his travels in rapt attention for hours, mesmerized. And somehow the rainforests took over my imagination.
Each time I passed through the dark ventricles of pain in early life, I sought my paint brushes and paper and rushed amidst the trees to paint. And immediately I was filled with hope. The kind that shimmering rays of the sun or a full moon bring. As they find their way deep inside the labyrinthine tresses of the rainforest, playing hide and seek with its foliage. And there was joy, as I put brush to palette and colour to paper. I keep seeking that Light in my canvases. Creating, recreating the universe of colour that would release it from itself, and it will emanate as a glow or a streak or stream of sunshine or moonlight as the glimmer of hope. That Light – within.’
– Manav Gupta
The grammar, he learnt from The Academy of Fine Arts, under Masters like Rathin Maitra. The soul of art, came from his guru Vasant Pandit, the unsung Master. ‘He taught me to dream, ever so gently, of forests far away…where the sky remained elusive.’ That’s when Gupta used to imagine rivers and rainforests – the very essence of his art that was to become his creative juice for many years to come
The dance of the desert winds
Watercolur on Paper
21 inches x 27 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Moonlight Sonata
Watercolur on Paper
15.74 inches x 21.06 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
“Marked for its philosophical leaning towards the cosmic matrix, the artist plays with color to build a texture and create well composed imagery. The palette in terms of its choice, mixing and rendering is built progressively to achieve a refined harmony and tonal quality that emanates a subtle light that heightens the visual appeal. Exploring nuances of light and color in delicate strokes, his nature inspired paintings create a poetic nuance and serenity around his creations.”
Sushma Bahl | Art Critic
Critique – Essay on Manav Gupta
Rainforest – Panorama, Birds Eye View
Watercolur on Paper
48 inches x 60 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Manav Gupta’s works, often described by critics as 'soul-stirring', 'poetic' and 'Turner-like', are immersive landscapes of thought — expansive, unrestrained, and deeply evocative. Each canvas is an unfolding narrative — a silent meditation, or a storm of color and form — where nature and consciousness merge into one. With every stroke, he orchestrates light with colour, layering it with raw emotion, rhythm, and movement. Light for him is "hope" and he crafts it within dreamlike narratives of rainforests and rivers, evoking a lingering contemplative experience, in both his intimate miniature works and large canvases.
Artist’s Statement:
“As I scrape the bottom of the soul for some ingredients the only way I can explain to myself, about what it all is, is to believe that in some past life (if there is one) I belonged to the rainforests. The mantra there, for survival, is to submit to the natural forces, bow before it, respect its ways, learn and grow. You cannot defy it or go against it. In the rainforests there are labyrinthine darknesses weaving around you but there is always light in streaks, in a glow, in a stream, sunlight…. all of which brings HOPE. You don’t bathe in it all the time but it seeks you out. Man is but a speck . The human race, still a speck, in this mighty Universe rich with millions of secrets. The rainforests teach you this. When I paint or sculpt, all this translates on my canvas. I – the medium. Hence, the lyrics of light, apostrophe of white, perception – sight, insight; Rainforests and the romance of colors, Earth. Water, Clay and the Universe. Then – this world loses its meanings. The larger one takes over and I create.” – Manav Gupta
(Just after his first solo in the spring of 1996, he wrote his artist’s statement. Light for him, became ’hope’ and the colours – the all-encompassing landscape of earth. He revisits his artist statement every year as an annual ritual to fine-comb its core, and it has stayed with him for all of these thirty years.)
Select Series & Exhibitions
Rainforests & the Circle of Life
Rainforest – The rising sun ablaze
Acrylic on Canvas
48 inches x 60 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Rainforest – the Kaleidoscope
Acrylic on Canvas
43 inches x 57.5 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
“Informed by profound intuition, Manav’s pictorial language emerges from and surmounts the creative process to exist objectively. It is then that the instrument of a level experience that is communicable in terms that relate to the knowledge and wisdom of the inwardly attained. The artist’s technical know how, as a colorist, is not deployed for its own sake, but because his technique has its own meditative content.”
Keshav Malik | Art Critic and Scholar
Critique – Essay on Manav Gupta
Rainforest – the Golden Womb
Acrylic on Canvas
48 inches x 60 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Birth of Venus, Universe Reborn
Acrylic on Canvas,
45 inches x 54 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
from a Garden in Calcutta
"A child grew up in a horticultural garden in the heart of Calcutta. There, in the enchanted world of plants and flowers, the small child would run and play – and paint.
That child is now one of India’s top contemporary artists. There is a web-like, diaphanous quality to Manav Gupta’s watercolors; ephemeral shapes are caught in shafts of colored light.
I am lost in a crowd of people who have come to the exhibition on opening night and I am not taking notes; but I am listening to what is said. Manav does not give maddening answers like the painting is what the viewer sees in it. Instead he is eager to share his vision, to enfold those who come, in the coordinates of his dreams.
Who is this man who would, if he could, hold the whole world in his hands? I will not answer in the enviable superlatives of the critical press to date; or dwell on his creative empathy with the former President of India as· expressed in their illustrated volume of poetry, Life Tree; or overly remind you that he has sold at Christies… Instead I will go back to the garden.
One day, young Manav had to leave the garden to help his mother raise his little sister through difficult times. It was only when his sister was safely married that Manav could devote himself to his art – which he did heart and soul, like a lover finally re-united with the long-time object of his desire. Manav Gupta has the passion and drive of the once-thwarted visionary; he holds close the undaunted dream of the garden of innocence he left too soon, the Lost Paradise which he recreates every day with his paint brush."
Patricia Groves | Cultural Theologist, Oman
Critique – Essay on Manav Gupta
lyrics of the desert winds
Acrylic on Canvas,
60 inches x 48 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
golden hues of limitless horizons
Acrylic on Canvas,
60 inches x 48 inches
Sold 🔴
Private Vernissage, Dubai, UAE, 2024
Rainforest and the Golden Sun. Hide-and-seek.
Watercolur on Paper
25 inches x 18.98 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Light before dawn, the rainforest secrets
Watercolur on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Exploring Earth's Elements
“From probing the first principles of nature and thought, Manav’s art is about nature’s pre-eminence and earth’s universal truths. “Man’s existence, needs to align with the larger cosmic matrix,” says Manav. The physical interface of global warming, Man’s interference with earth’s natural ecosystems, disregard to environment consciousness by Man has all impacted the artist deeply over the years. What is enticing is that he dips his brush deep into his intrinsic romanticism, puts it in context through his deep rooted faith and psyche of Indian spirituality and translates it all on his canvas in the language that’s metaphysical."
Uma Nair | Art Critic
Critique – Essay on Manav Gupta
Violet Spring
Watercolur on Paper
28.74 inches x 21.65 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Prologue of Recurring Dreams
Watercolur on Paper
20.07 inches x 12.99 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
"Sounds, moods and rhythms have deeply affected the artist to give a brilliant sensitivity to his works. That's what makes them compelling, lingering long after the engagement."
THE TELEGRAPH
Rainforest – crimson lake
Acrylic on Canvas
25 inches x 48 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
'Watercolours that stir your soul'
COSMOPOLITAN
Shimmering dancing light, River of Fire, Life spring alights.
Waterolour on Paper
22.44 inches x 29.52 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Earth
Watercolur on Paper
20.86 inches x 27.55 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Ethereal light in the rainforest slopes
Watercolur on Paper
21.85 inches x 29.72 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
Winds of Change
Watercolur on Paper
21.02 inches x 29.13 inches
►
Upcoming Exhibition
"The use of colours is excellent... the works shows individuality. His work is an exploration of the amalgam of tangible and intangible elements of nature. The landscapes done by him go beyond the palpable, audible and visible, to that which cannot be touched, heard or seen."
Alka Thakur | Art Critic, First City
Rainforests and the Timeless Metaphors of Dreams
Element Fire
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: VHAI Gallery, New Delhi
1999
rainforest 7
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Omani Fine Arts Society,
Muscat, Oman
Permanent Collection: Royal Household of Oman
2007
rainforest 4
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Rainforest and the Circle of Life, Unsung Hymns of Clay,
Ditsong Museum of Natural History,
Pretoria, South Africa
2013
rainforest 3
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series, Taj Bengal, Kolkata
1997
the five elements - rainforest
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Exhibition: Travelling Trilogy Edition II,
Nehru Centre, London, UK; Amherst, MA, New York, NY, Des Moines, Iowa, San Jose State University, CA; Indian Embassy, Berlin, Germany
2010
rainforest 9
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Travelling Trilogy Edition II,
Nehru Centre, London, UK; Amherst, MA, New York, NY, Des Moines, Iowa, San Jose State University, CA; Indian Embassy, Berlin, Germany
2010
rainforest 3
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Exhibition: Travelling Trilogy Edition II,
Nehru Centre, London, UK; Amherst, MA, New York, NY, Des Moines, Iowa, San Jose State University, CA; Indian Embassy, Berlin, Germany
2010
Rainforest – the matrix
Waterolour on Paper
43.5 inches x 57 inches
Rainforest. Snow. Lyrics of light. Apostrophes of white
Watercolur on Paper
36 inches x 57 inches
Non Limiting Horizons
non limiting horizons - light
Watercolour on Paper
21 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Rainforests – on my eyot, World Environment Day, The Park, New Delhi
2003
Public Art Project: Plant a Sapling on my Canvas
non limiting horizons - sparks
Watercolour on Paper
23 inches x 27 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Sense Essence, Pratirupa Pururupa, Leela Palace & Renaissance Gallery, Bangalore
2002
non limiting horizons - the marsh
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Private Vernissage, London, Oxford, Eastbourne, UK
2023
non limiting horizons
Acrylic on Canvas
60 inches x 36 inches
Bonhams (Charity) Auction, London
Sold 🔴
Bonham's, Asia House, London, UK
2007
‘Non Limiting Horizons’
Manav Gupta
60 x 36 Inches
Acrylic on canvas
Sold at Bonham’s (Charity) Auction, London
Asia House
11th June, 2007
Lot No 75
Catalogue page 120-121:
Manav Gupta, captures the lyrical quality of light and colour in nature with equal ease in a variety of media. He is the recipient of the inaugural Sanatan Puraskar for Fine Arts 2006. He was commissioned by the President APJ Abdul Kalam for interpreting his poems in paintings, now a book “The Life Tree” published by Penguin. Nominated on the Expert Committee for the National Republic Day celebrations he was commissioned by the Government of India to make a series of short films on the environment. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore, the Birla Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata; the Parliament, Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi and the Victoria Jones Gallery, London besides several private collections across the globe. He has had numerous solo shows. Gupta paints and lives out of Delhi.
“Manav Gupta is an artist with a difference…his paintings is often visually striking…
Sounds, moods and rhythms have deeply affected the artist to give a brilliant sensitivity to his works.
The Telegraph
Manav creates a colourful world of impressions and images of life, made-up of throbbing lines and changing colours.
THE ASIAN AGE
Equally at ease with oils and other media. An artist to the core.
OUTLOOK
Passion that’s patently obvious, in images of the rainforest, elements of nature and horizons;
INDIAN EXPRESS
“Colors express Manav’s best – at times soft and gentle almost ethereal and whispering while others suddenly burst into vibrant and passionate reds, indigos and yet again into somber and rich earth tones.”
Inside Outside
non limiting horizons - 8
Watercolour on Paper
19 inches x 28 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Sense Essence, Pratirupa Pururupa, Leela Palace & Renaissance Gallery, Bangalore
2002
Permanent Collection, Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore, India
'Exuberant and Reflective, the artist has a fine sense of colour'
Art Critic, The Economic Times
Lyrics of light
lyrics of light 4
Watercolour on Paper
8 inches x 8 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series II, Roosevelt House, US Embassy, New Delhi
2001
Lyrics of Light 3
Watercolour on Paper
8 inches x 8 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series II, Roosevelt House, US Embassy, New Delhi
2001
lyrics of light 3
Watercolour on Paper
8 inches x 8 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series II, Roosevelt House, US Embassy, New Delhi
2001
lyrics of light
Watercolour on Paper
8 inches x 8 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series II, Roosevelt House, US Embassy, New Delhi
2001
“Thus, and in sum, here is evidence of a self-spiritualizing imagination, and wherein the painter is trying to integrate such wholes of experience as bring about our union with the essential reality. Through his external senses the painter is able to perceive the visible world. Through his internal senses he tries to perceive the microcosm, including the twin level of body and soul. The painter has a message to deliver to his ordinary self—a message concerning our deepest being. It means an awakening to a more elevated plane of living. Finally, his paintings symbolise an epiphany of the universe continually opening up from sacred source, the centre of the birth of life. An epiphany of which it is both an expression and symbol”
– Keshav Malik
lyrics of light - the rainforest
Watercolour on Paper
15 inches x 23 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Online Private Vernissage by Invitation, USA
2023
lyrics of light - dusk
Watercolour on Paper
13.58 inches x 18.9 inches
meandering river - lyrics of light, the rainforests
Watercolour on Paper
21 inches x 27 inches
'Watercolours are Manav’s forte but he is equally adept at oil and uses a variety of papers to paint on. Never tiring of experimenting, he has used varied mediums like wood and roots in their natural shapes, wood pulp, wood dust, wood and glass, bamboo…But it is his watercolors that really express Manav best- at times soft and gentle almost ethereal and whispery like his favourite ones drawn in blues and greens, while others suddenly burst into vibrant and passionate oranges and, reds and indigos and yet again move onto somber and rich browns, greys and ochres of the earth tones.'
Inside Outside
cave indigo
Watercolour on Paper
12.99 inches x 18.89 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Bosch & Lomb Factory with Artist's Guest Lecture on 'Sight - Insight' for factory workers. One Year Brand Ambassadorship for their Eyeview Project
2002
Permanent Collection: Bosch & Lomb
echoing green
Watercolour on Paper
6.5 inches x 14.5 inches
Lyrics of Light 13
Watercolour on Paper
24.41 inches x 17.32 inches
‘His works are mystical – very reminiscent of the landscapes of Japan that Murakami describes in his novels. This incredible use of haze is magical. All his paintings have this particular quality. They hide more than they reveal. His quality of expressing his creativity so poetically is what makes his rainforests, the sunsets, the non limiting horizons, all so outstanding , done with careful attention to detail’ Light and colour play hide and seek in his abstracts on nature and rainforests, as well as his earlier landscapes. From 4”x4” miniatures to giant 20ft canvases, Gupta deploys a distinctive sanctity of yellows, reds, oranges and crimson that negotiate the dark tresses of Pynes’s grey and Ivory black, the enveloping greens and hues of Burnt Sienna and Prussian Blue, leading the viewer effortlessly follow the light that it all creates. He captivates the viewer to follow the passages of his colour with intrigue and mystique.
Sentry Pines
Watercolour on Paper
12 inches x 8.25 inches
moonlight sonata 1
Watercolour on Paper
19 inches x 28 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Omani Fine Arts Society, Muscat, Oman
2007
when dusk descends
Watercolour on Paper
10 inches x 8.5 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series II, Roosevelt House, US Embassy, New Delhi
2001
moonlight sonata 2
Watercolour on Paper
24.41 inches x 17.32 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Omani Fine Arts Society, Muscat, Oman
2007
The Golden Womb
Watercolour on Paper
12.99 inches x 18.89 inches
lyrics of light
Watercolour on Paper
19 inches x 28 inches
Lyrics of Light – Break of dawn
Watercolour on Paper
24.41 inches x 17.32 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series II, Roosevelt House, US Embassy, New Delhi
2001
'Different Strokes – Why Manav Gupta is an artist with a difference ... his paintings are often visually striking... Sounds, moods and rhythms have deeply affected the artist to give a brilliant sensitivity to his works. '
The Telegraph
Intimate Whispers
“The chirping of birds
keeps up
its intimate conversations
with me.
They hardly are loud,
just poetic,
silent, eloquent.
They come and perch quietly
in pristine moments of truth
as dawn descends,
dusk elopes,
or when
the lazy listless afternoon
sleeps.
Never forcing themselves,
they just happen
as punctuations
on twigs,
on rocks,
on grass,
bringing their far away stories
wrapped in mystery and mystique,
in intimate whispers
that linger
as gentle persuasions.”
– manav gupta
intimate whispers
Watercolour on Paper
12 inches x 20 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Bosch & Lomb Factory with Artist's Guest Lecture on 'Sight - Insight' for factory workers. One Year Brand Ambassadorship for their Eyeview Project
2002
Permanent Collection: Bosch & Lomb
intimate whispers 2
Watercolour on Paper
6.5 inches x 8 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Omani Fine Arts Society, Muscat, Oman
2007
intimate whispers - chirping of birds
Watercolour on Paper
6.5 inches x 6.5 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Sense Essence, Pratirupa Pururupa, Leela Palace & Renaissance Gallery, Bangalore
2002
intimate whispers 2
Watercolour on Paper
7 inches x 6.5 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Omani Fine Arts Society, Muscat, Oman
2007
intimate whispers 2
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series III, Uruswati Gallery, New Delhi
2001
intimate whispers 7
Watercolour on Paper
6.5 inches x 6.5 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Earth Series II, Roosevelt House, US Embassy, New Delhi
2001
intimate whispers 2
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Sense Essence, Pratirupa Pururupa, Leela Palace & Renaissance Gallery, Bangalore
2002
'"Muse. Flight. Soar" – He is at home with different mediums. Manav the poet and Manav the artist marry easily to create forms and shades. The poems only underline the aura of mysticism around the paintings. The shades are mingled deftly to evoke a sense of curiosity. All the paintings have one thing in common they glow with the artist’s fervour and energy… sensitive explorations of earth’s different hues…'
Art Critic, The Statesman
Shoonya - from beyond
Moonlight Sonata 6
Watercolour on Paper
48 inches x 34 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Shoonya(from Beyond), Lalit Kala, National Academy of Art, New Delhi, India
2005
from Beyond
Watercolour on Paper
48 inches x 36 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Victoria Jones Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2005
Quiet power of Earth within - cross sections of earth, fire, water
Watercolour on Paper
48 inches x 33 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Shoonya(from Beyond), Lalit Kala, National Academy of Art, New Delhi, India
2005
'One of the promising young lights of the art world held his first solo exhibition of watercolors recently. His canvasses glow with colour... this talented young artist had been winning numerous awards from an early age. The exhibition held recently marked his coming of age in the art world. At the age of 28 he has surmounted numerous personal tragedies to come so far. One hopes that he will continue to do so.'
The Statesman
Umbilical Cords of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Space
The umbilical cords of earth are a series where Manav explores man’s relationship with nature. He goes on to create multi-layered engagements of visual matrix that lure the viewer to think in a nonlinear manner while interpreting the visual dimensions of colour and form mating on the canvas. Starting with layers of abstract flow of colours to build an intricate pattern of colour palette that represents the five elements of nature, he builds several episodes of intricate diaphanous web of mystique and light interacting with each other. Upon this layer of abstraction he punctuates figures as organic breathing pulsating energy that gives and takes nourishment from nature. And rising rows of humans translate the seven energy chakras that form the basic human energy composition as referenced in different ancient texts. The rising diminishing rows of human activity across the abstract landscape become idioms of rising consciousness of energy. This development of a fine amalgamation of the figuration and abstraction that blend into each other create a new vocabulary as the signature style of the artist.
One of his earliest explorations of themes, this is a signature series of the artist where he challenges the viewer to break a preconceived visual expectation and engage with man and nature’s nurturing biorhythms of energy. It was born from the artist’s experiences of his late childhood where on returning from his school, he often rushed to the trees, and spent hours sketching them and felt deeply nourished in their company. The pain as a single parent child, and the rigours of supporting his mother for making ends meet for the needs of the family, were often healed by the foliage in the rich sylvan spread of the National Library campus, where he stayed. It was this rejuvenating bonding with the elements of earth that germinated as his expression of Umbilical Cords of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Space.
Victoria Ross | Muscat, Oman
Essay Excerpt
Solo Exhibition, Omani Fine Arts Society | 2007
‘Umbilical Cords of Earth, Water, Clay’
Manav Gupta
60 x 48 inches
Acrylic on Canvas
Sold at Christies, London.
Charity Sale & Exhibition for Pratham, UK
6th September, 2010
Catalogue, Page 33:
As a critic wrote of Manav Gupta: All that he does comes from deep within. There’s nothing cosmetic about what he feels or what he does.” Truly. For, Manav’s quality isn’t just about a genius. It’s about how he feels and the shades of blue he seeks in the sky through his eyes. It’s about the grit and struggle of a man from humble circumstances. It’s about a man who hasn’t grown up breathing tinned air. It’s as easy as the flow of a deep river that meanders through a landscape and runs off to an unknown destination where it meets the horizon.
'Echoing Parables'
by Manav Gupta
Visions lay bare that night
Amidst the shadows,
amidst the shades
Preying on the leaves
pervading the space,
Spilling the sombre greyness around,
Emancipated from the yoke of sound
Echoing the deafening silence.
"They' stood askance
Ashamed and startled perchance alone
Gazing in horror at the visions around
Blinded as they were in the daylight before,
Parables dawned as night approached.
Eyes clouded with peurile illusions
Soaked in the ghastly images around
Aware and yet unaware
amidst the shattered castles built,
"They' stood askance
till darkness dawned.
The Parable then spoke :
as the visions broke
Amidst the shades and shadows around
"They' only hoped it wasn't too late
for the resurrecting Dawn..
The 'umbilical cords of earth' series by the artist is one of his earliest ones; a nebulous version of which was displayed at the Academy of Fine Arts annual exhibition during his childhood. At around 19 years of age, Manav wrote ‘Echoing Parables’, a poem, selected to be published in the International Journal on the occasion of the London Book Fair, 1988. The poem resonates his inner angst, with the essence of thought that gave birth to this series. He speaks of inner consciousness that needs to be awakened amidst the human failure of taking the umbilical cords of earth as granted. He dreams that in the metaphor of this ‘night’ the parable that ‘dawns’ would be a resurrection of the soul for humans to respect and recognise the self destructive and mindlessly unsustainable consumption; rather we would awaken and rise to become truly ‘aware’, 'amidst the shattered castles built' to responsibly reap the huge abundance of Earth that has enough for everybody and would give back to the planet, what we can, in our minuscule existence.
'Dance of Salvation'
Umbilical Cords of Earth, Air
Watercolour on Paper
60 inches x 36 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Victoria Jones Gallery, London
2005
Umbilical Cords of Earth
Watercolour on Paper
28 inches x 21 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: India Awaiting, Timeless Metaphors of Dreams, Taj Palace, New Delhi
1999
Umbilical Cords of Clay
Watercolour on Paper
60 inches x 36 inches
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Atelier, Amrita Shergill Marg, New Delhi
2017
Umbilical Cords of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Space
Watercolour on Paper
60 inches x 48 inches
Christies (Charity) Auction
New Delhi, 2006
Sold 🔴
Exhibition: Shoonya (from beyond) & Umbilical Cords of Earth, Rashtrapati Bhawan, Hosted by Hon'ble President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
2005
The bedrock of Manav Gupta's art comes from his early life in childhood days in Kolkata. His art transmutes a repository of emotions and experiences that stem from his early childhood of 0 - 5 years, nurtured by his literateaur parents, both scholars, who introduced him to the sensorial universe of all five elements and the well rounded cultural milieu of literature, dance, music, theatre, poetry and art. The striking contrast of subsequent teenage years of pain and struggle, as a single parent child, led him to embrace trees and the sylvan surroundings of the National Library Campus at that time. He sat beside trees, studying the poetry of the contours of tree trunks, the textures of its bark, sketching it all for hours after school. Nature nurtured him and it became the soul of his art. His quest for light as 'hope' in his paintings, the mystical aura, hailed by critics, that he has mastered of light and colour, comes from the elements of Nature, rain and river, hail and storm, – life's struggles from his humble beginnings. His passion for creating remained undaunted and the moment he could take the plunge, he chose the life of an artist.
Academy of Fine Arts - Midsummer Exhibition
Manav Gupta
Academy of Fine Arts, Kokata, India
July 31 - August 14, 1987
Press:
"...and the black and white drawing of an ensemble - like burgeoning banyan trunk (Manav Gupta) also compel attention."
Young Painters, Sameer Dutta, Art Critic, Statesman, Exhibition Review
Academy of Fine Arts - Annual Exhibition
Manav Gupta
Academy of Fine Arts, Kokata, India
June 19 - June 25, 1987
Press:
"...a good many of them were of a considerable standard... Manav Gupta's 'echoes unheard' in watercolour... deserved mention."
Eye Catchers at Xavier's Show, Shankar Majumdar, Art Critic, Exhibition Review
Manav Gupta’s art, facing both forwards and inwards, is a contemplation of spiritual and the natural communion. And so, his images act as a vehicle of a visionary world that is itself the instrument of self-transcendence. His disposition is towards invoking the inner world of the soul as the stage of divine imminence. His work has undergone much development. The maturation is palpable.
Working in a wide range of installations, watercolors, acrylics, oils, sculptures and multi media, he puts the medium to fresh creative tasks. Technically, as far as color and light goes, he is highly professional. Moreover he has a precise understanding of color as the language with which nature tries to communicate meanings and values. For him color is a function of sight- implying a sun- like quality in the eye.
Here then is a silent discourse on the music of colors. In this way, visually he works out notes and scales to produce melody and harmony. One can follow Manav’s development from color harmonies of great refinement even in his earlier work- on to a progressive liberation of light from the object, or perhaps the resolution of the object into light. The artist has come to understand light as that from which the objects we see are made.
Informed by profound intuition, Manav’s pictorial language emerges from and surmounts the creative process to exist objectively. It is then that the instrument of a level experience that is communicable in terms that relate to the knowledge and wisdom of the inwardly attained. The artist’s technical know how, as a colorist, is not deployed for its own sake, but because his technique has its own meditative content.
Thus, and in sum, here is evidence of a self-spiritualizing imagination, and wherein the painter is trying to integrate such wholes of experience as bring about our union with the essential reality. Through his external senses the painter is able to perceive the visible world. Through his internal senses he tries to perceive the microcosm, including the twin level of body and soul. The painter has a message to deliver to his ordinary self—a message concerning our deepest being. It means an awakening to a more elevated plane of living. Finally, his paintings symbolise an epiphany of the universe continually opening up from sacred source, the centre of the birth of life. An epiphany of which it is both an expression and symbol
- Keshav Malik | Art Critic and Scholar
A child grew up in a horticultural garden in the heart of Calcutta. There, in the enchanted world of plants and flowers, the small child would run and play – and paint.
That child is now one of India’s top contemporary artists. There is a web-like, diaphanous quality to Manav Gupta’s watercolors; ephemeral shapes are caught in shafts of colored light. A bird perches momentarily on an invisible branch. It does not seem like the bird will flyaway; but it could disintegrate into the forms from which it was made; or slip into spaces between colors. I am lost in a crowd of people who have come to the exhibition on opening night and I am not taking notes; but I am listening to what is said.
Manav does not give maddening answers like the painting is what the viewer sees in it. Instead he is eager to share his vision, to enfold those who come, in the coordinates of his dreams. He rides along on words, images and music, taking the unspoken language of his paintings into films and performances This artist sees painting in a cascading vortex of rhythm, voice and dance. By painting to the cadence of poetry, the motion of dance and the exhilaration of music, Manav feels that he can encompass the scent, the spirit of the performing arts in image, on canvas … that this is a step toward a more universal and multidimensional concept of painting in our strange, modern world of colliding sensory stimulation. Who is this man who would, if he could, hold the whole world in his hands? I will not answer in the enviable superlatives of the critical press to date; or dwell on his creative empathy with the former President of India as· expressed in their illustrated volume of poetry, Life Tree; or overly remind you that he has sold at Christies… Instead I will go back to the garden.
One day, young Manav had to leave the garden to help his mother raise his little sister through difficult times. It was only when his sister was safely married that Manav could devote himself to his art – which he did heart and soul, like a lover finally re-united with the long-time object of his desire. Manav Gupta has the passion and drive of the once-thwarted visionary; he holds close the undaunted dream of the garden of innocence he left too soon, the Lost Paradise which he recreates every day with his paint brush.
- Patricia Groves | Cultural Theologist, Oman
“From probing the first principles of nature and thought, Manav’s art is about nature’s pre-eminence and earth’s universal truths. “Man’s existence, needs to align with the larger cosmic matrix,” says Manav. The physical interface of global warming, Man’s interference with earth’s natural ecosystems, disregard to environment consciousness by Man has all impacted the artist deeply over the years.
What is enticing is that he dips his brush deep into his intrinsic romanticism, puts it in context through his deep rooted faith and psyche of Indian spirituality and translates it all on his canvas in the language that’s metaphysical. Recently, in the artist’s creative journey, the influence of the present socio-cultural metamorphosis, where moral fabrics are eroding at the altar of manipulative social matrices and blatant consumerist environment is adding new dimensions to his art. It seems the protagonists of his canvas seek to break away from the shackles of this web towards “light” that is “hope”.
His watercolours sold out last year and he spoke about the process of his sensibility that awakens the nature lover in us. “As I scrape the bottom of the soul for some ingredients the only way I can explain to myself, about what it all is, is to believe that in some past life (if there is one), I belonged to the rainforests. The mantra there, for survival, is to submit to the natural forces, bow before it, respect its ways, learn and grow. You cannot defy it or go against it. In the rainforests there are labyrinthine darknesses weaving around you but there is always light in streaks, in a glow, in a stream, sunlight…all of which brings hope. You don’t bathe in it all the time but it seeks you out. Man is but a speck. The human race, still a speck, in this mighty universe rich with millions of secrets. The rainforests teach you this,” he states.
Is painting then a transcendental experience? Far away from the madding crowds of monetary markets? “When I paint, what transcend on the canvas are the hope and the power of the eternal truths of nature’s emblematic symbols,” he says. Adding, “Light, for me is — Hope and Colour — the Universe in which it exists.” This is when, for him, this world loses its meanings. The larger one takes over and he paints.”
- Uma Nair | Art critic, Historian
Pictured above: Manav Gupta painting on a Canvas.
Location: Amherst College – Campus Guest House.
Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
He is not what you traditionally know as an artist. An alumnus of Presidency College, Kolkata, Manav picked up the paint brush as a child in the serene, sylvan surroundings of National Library, Kolkata. In that sense, therefore, this young artist lived and grew up in the lap of heritage.
He always had a restless heart, one which died to try out things. And he would… Even as he made this journey, the canvas was never far away and the brush strokes matured. He studied painting under Shri Vasant Pandit, an unsung master. Manav often recalls how mesmerized he’d be as his guru would talk to him for hours. Manav’s parents took him to the master when he was a toddler, barely two years of age. Even at that tender age, the Master created an indelible impression on him. And from that day, till the time Manav left the city of his birth for Delhi, the Guru and his shishya vibed. They talked endlessly and painted together. It was as if two souls were tied in one string….
Today, Manav has grown manifold. His art has taken him to the zenith. He’s a name the world recognizes. All this because he’s spontaneous. His art comes from within. It has nothing to do with formal training. “My art is what I am. What I perceive. And what I look forward to. My art is my heart beat.” There have been critics who’ve praised him for his technique. But more often than not, what he has created has been the result of a storm within. His brush strokes have followed the dimensions of those restless stirrings.
He is as close to nature as possible. All that he does comes from deep within. There’s nothing cosmetic about what he feels or what he does.” Truly. For, Manav’s quality isn’t just about a genius. It’s about how he feels and the shades of blue he seeks in the sky through his eyes. It’s about the grit and struggle of a man from humble circumstances. It’s about a man who hasn’t grown up breathing tinned air. It’s as easy as the flow of a deep river that meanders through a landscape and runs off to an unknown destination where it meets the horizon. Manav is a product of nature. Hence, his love for the trees. Manav is about perception. Hence, his fetish for eyes. Manav is Manav. Unique as ever.
- Kingshuk Mukherji | Asst Executive Editor, Times of India
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