rainforests
& the timeless metaphors of dreams.
non limiting horizons.
lyrics of light.
“Nature’s process of creation, as it exists in its timelessness,in its oneness and peace,has all the answers to man’s needs of growth and progress and development. If the human endeavor first absorbs and then adopts these answers in its developmental process, the growth from cities to mega cities and path to progress would not create silent self digging graves of human extinction.”
-manav gupta
- Rainforests and the Timeless Metaphors of Dreams by Manav Gupta (August 1997)
- “on my eyot, umbilical cords of earth” by Manav Gupta (May 1999)
- One minute films on environment consciousness (Commissioned by the Govt. of India) (2005)
"Manav Gupta is a Natural."
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.
Late Kingshuk Mukherji, Executive Editor, Times of India
Title: Non Limiting Horizons
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 58 inches x 48 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
- Note: This work is marked by experts for future high-value auctions.
Title: Rainforest – The rising sun ablaze
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 48 inches x 60 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
Title: Rainforest – the Kaleidoscope
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 43 inches x 57.5 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
- Note: This work is marked by experts for future high-value auctions.
Title: Rainforest – Panorama | Birds Eye View
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 43.5 inches x 57 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
- Note: This work is marked by experts for future high-value auctions.
Title: Rainforest. Snow. Lyrics of light . Apostrophes of white.
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 36 inches x 57 inches
Title: Rainforest – crimson lake
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas.
Dimensions: 25 inches x 48 inches
“When dusk elopes,
Crimson ray blushes.
Love blossoms, just before night.”
IMPERIALS
“Dance…
Desert winds.
Thousand dreams float
on sands of Time.”
Title: The dance of the desert winds
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 21 inches x 27 inches
53.34 cm x 68.58 cm
Artist: Manav Gupta
- Note: This work is marked by experts for future high-value auctions.
“Entwined in love
The creepers sleep.
Its twilight , not yet dawn
Lyrics of light quietly seep.
Rain has washed
colours of the past.
Leaves have fallen.
Autumn recedes.
The womb is laden
with serene hues
New life beacons,
the mysteries grow deep.”
Title: Light before dawn, the rainforest secrets
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 28 inches x 21 inches
(71.12 cms x 53.34 cms)
Artist: Manav Gupta
- Note: This work is marked by experts for future high-value auctions.
“Break of dawn.
Poetry of an ocean
hues of prussian blue
as payne’s grey yawns
a panoramic view.
The news of waves,
cloud symphonies .
Notes of night.
The glistening white.
Sand in the foreground,
shores rebound.”
Title: Moonlight Sonata
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 40 cm x 53.5 cm;
15.74 x 21.06 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
- Note: This work is marked by experts for future high-value auctions.
“The break of dawn,
the sound of streams.
Twilight.
Dusk.
Silent or loud,
eloquent scream
of joy or despair
or just an ecstatic dream”
Title: Ethereal light in the rainforest slopes
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 55.5 cm x 75.5 cm
21.85 inches x 29.72 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
- Note: This work is marked by experts for future high-value auctions.
“Shimmering dancing light
River of Fire
Life spring alights.”
Title: Shimmering dancing light. River of Fire. Life spring alights.
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 57 cm x 75 cm;
22.44 inches x 29.53 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
“Sun shines
in the forest
lettering trees with gold
The brush of power
sprinkles yellow in bold.”
Title: Rainforest and the Golden Sun. Hide-and-seek.
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 63.5 cm x 48.2 cm;
25 inches x 18.98 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
“When the river falls
from slopes afar
Dreams are born
In ecstatic amour.
Vermillion mates
with Light and blues.
Sentinel trees blush
at the forest bizarre…”
Title: Mystic forest
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 68 cm x 53 cm;
26.77 inches x 20.87 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
“Dense foliage of mystic dreams
Light from the window
Hope redeems.”
Title: Violet Spring
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 73 cm x 55 cm;
28.74 inches x 21.65 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
Epilogue
Receding Sun.
Songs of dusk.
Mountains caress
lingering light.
Shadows play
hide and ssek.
Stories retire
For another day.
Gentle breeze announces
Epilogue stays.
Title: Lyrics of Light – Dusk
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 34.5 cm x 48 cm;
13.58 inches x 18.9 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
Rainforest awakens
to the harbinger of life.
Sun caresses
each curve of mountain and sand.
Birds,
chirp
in ritual dance
of flight
Fading far
into the Light.
Title: Lyrics of Light – Break of dawn
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Dimensions: 62 cm x 44 cm;
24.41 inches x 17.32 inches
Artist: Manav Gupta
“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, watercolours, 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 “umbilical chord-rainforest” symbolizes 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.“
- ‘An Inward Attunement’, Essay on Manav Gupta by Late Keshav Malik, Art Critic & Scholar.
“Exuberant and reflective. The artist has a fine sense of colour. Delicate colors that exploit the lambent fluidity of the medium for a language that’s poetic.. he creates a symphony of subtle tones”
The Economic Times
“Gupta is one of the few leading painters today whose dexterity in exploring light and colour brilliantly with the most sensitive and delicate stroke play has fetched him rare critical acclaim from luminaries, critics and the media alike.”
Times of Oman
“Works displayed represent the freshness and originality of thought, that only a poet could think of.”
Oman Observer
“Passion that’s patently obvious, in images of the rainforest, elements of nature and horizons”
Indian Express
“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”
The Statesman
“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
“What is interesting is the use of paper to give the effect of water sprays or just space so essential in creating a composition. There is an essence of relaxation permeating his landscapes.”
Femina
“Manav creates a colorful world of impressions and images of life, made-up of throbbing lines and changing colors.”
Asian Age
“Manav is most sought after for his depth of colour, light and composition in his paintings and art practices”
India Perspectives, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt of India
“Delhi is talking about- Manav has taken the Climate cause through art”
Delhi Times, Times of India
“Manav Gupta puts environmental issues on canvas.
And it’s not the recent headlines on climate change that’s influencing what he puts on canvas. He has been at it since 1996.”
The Indian Express
“The artist, who remembers the first box of crayons that he got at the age of one year, has experimented with almost all forms of media, ranging from installations to site-specific architectural spaces, the conceptual to multimedia, canvas to sculptures. All, however, are bound together by the constants of “light, color, spontaneity and nature””
Blouin Art Info
“Gupta employs a contemporary artistic language used to spread a message about environment conservation”
The Pioneer
Diane de Beer, Arts Editor, Pretoria News, South Africa
‘Quest for Light’: “He speaks in poetry and visual metaphor through installations and through paintings layered in watercolour, acrylic and oils, communicating in light and colour and lyrical form, all that he perceives in nature and how it relates to his soul.”
Classic Feel
“One of India’s most erudite and versatile contemporary artists”
TIMES OF INDIA
“When I paint, what transcends on the canvas are the hope and the power of the eternal truths of nature’s emblematic symbols”..."Light for me is Hope and Colour, the Universe in which it transcends"
- Manav Gupta
