Curator
The Art of Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy refers to his art as “Jharna-Kala”, which means “fountain of art”. He has well been known for his unusual use of personally crafted sponges and painting implements in his painted works, in which he exhibits a feathery type of boldness of stroke and form, which seems to fan a brilliance of energy into the paintings. The intuitive combinations of colours in these simplistic, abstract, acrylic paintings, are noticeably harmonizing in an almost healing way. The abundance of colour and the sweeping movement of images are as if a massage to the visual senses.
Sri Chinmoy uses a range of media, from watercolours and gouache on “Arches” watercolour paper, to inks on handmade, Thai petal-inclusion papers. Quite often one will even find that he has used markers to produce those ever joyful, Zen-like line drawings of birds, which are such a notable and recurrent element in his works.
Sri Chinmoy’s artwork exhibits mastery, a capacity to communicate to the viewer, through the colours used, the techniques employed, and very obviously, the originality of his style. He does not find the necessity to identify with a particular school of art, nor to un-identify with any mode either, as his art is expressed rather spontaneously, without lengthy deliberations of the mind. His artwork is unpretentious and does not depend on rude impacts in order to affect others. Rather, Sri Chinmoy uses the language of art to express what comes from within, and one might observe that he utilizes that language eloquently to convey his work’s essence to others.
In his paintings, Sri Chinmoy lets his art flow from his heart, in a pouring forth of creative energy. He expresses sentiments of harmony, oneness and childlike joy in his art. His art, abundant in the creative force, is ever effecting new inspiration, an inspiration for The Journey. He says, “My soul is a bird of fire winging the Infinite.”
To be sure, the symbol of the bird figures prominently throughout his artistic expressions, being a metaphor for the aspiration of the Soul, or the Inner Self, to transcend itself, as it flies upward or expands outward into the skies of freedom and liberation. For much as the human life seeks the freedom so inextricably essential to its very existence and evolution, so also the soul seeks its own Liberation, flying on the wings of inspiration.
And so we endeavour to draw light into our own lives, and at the same time, not to cast a shadow on another’s existence.
May the soul-bird within each one of us, fly to its own greatest heights.