Mirroring Jeganathan Ramachandram

Aandavan

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

Khalil Gibran

Is ‘mirroring’, that reflecting of ourselves back to ourselves, ‘Darshan'? If the ‘god’ is within us, or if we are made in the image of a ‘god’, then is mirroring being in the presence of god, or Darshan (in sanskrit)? Are we seeing with ‘reverence and devotion’ in order to receive the grace and blessings of the supreme and omnipresent, through mirroring? Through mirroring are we averting our eyes/mind ‘heavenwards’ or ‘skywards’ in the act of ‘Akash’, or grounding the spiritual? In the ‘Vedas’, specifically Shrimad Bhagavatam (1.2.32), it mentions that “The Lord as Supersoul pervades all things, just as fire permeates wood, and so He appears to be of many varieties, though He is the absolute one without a second.” I will leave you to ponder these questions.

Mirroring The Centre….the science of positive vibrations, this is the current exhibition on at the Indian Cultural centre, Cap Square, Kuala Lumpur. It is a solo exhibition, and the 10th such of the well respected Malaysian Indian artist, and poet, Jeganathan Ramachandram.

Though this fresh exhibition is concerned with intricacies and intimacies of Hinduism, science and Sakti (energy), in true Platonic philosophic style the artist/poet Jeganathan also presents his viewers with enough layers, in the philosophical as well as in the textual depth of his paintings, to fascinate and enthral even the most casual glance. We are given the choice, whether to skim the surface of his canvases, and accept the paintings for the obvious beauties they are, or delve to whichever layer of meaning we are capable, or incapable, of ‘reading’, and gain either a fleeting or a more measured and extremely profound extrapolation of signs, symbols and metaphors, enough to enrich our soul. But, of course, like life, what you take away mostly depends upon what you bring to the party/launch.

I am old enough to have been a ‘flower child’, a ‘hippy’, listening to The Beach Boys sing Good Vibrations (1967). In the 1960s American street vernacular, it was all about ‘vibes’ (radiating aura or feelings). Beach Boys’ songwriter Brian Wilson heard the notion of ‘vibes’ first from his mother, but many young Westerners were interested in Oriental philosophies and theologies, the lure of India and exotica of Hinduism.  Jeganathan reminds us that Western science has laid claim to the ‘discovery’ of atoms, their movement - vibration, yet it is something that Hinduism had been aware of for centuries. Om, an oft repeated mantra, is regarded as being three separate sounds aa-au-ma, and is symbolic of the three major deities (the Trimurti) in Hinduism - Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer. Om is an intonation of the constant sound (vibration) of the world. Om, it is believed, when intoned correctly, is able to vibrate to one’s very soul (Atman).

Like the Indipop duo Colonial Cousins’ (Hariharan and Leslie Lewis) song Krishna Ni Begane Baaro (Krishna come soon) where Krishna, Rama, Jesus etc are invoked to save the world, Jeganathan brings a host of deities into his own exhibition, perhaps revealing them (simply?) as incarnations of the same soul (Atman), the same cosmic, eternal, vibration which we, humans, mirror. Buddha is shown (painted) as The Moment, in his blue splendour and saffron robes, sitting serenely by another canvas, that of Jesus. We are reminded of John the Baptist, referring to Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God’ (Look, there goes the Lamb of God), for within Jeganathan’s painting The Messenger, the bearded ‘god’ figure, replete with halo and cherub, holds and pets a lamb in his arms. Ganesha is represented in more than one painting, Krishna is there, and Murugan too gets a look in.

The exhibition resounds with vibrating spirituality. Jeganathan has always had a leaning towards the more aesthetic and the devotional. Ursula k.Le Guin wrote ‘I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth’. Jeganathan is not an atheist, and though an artist, strives for truth in Hindu science, poetics and revelation through painting. 

His recent paintings glow. Jeganathan has achieved a scintillating glimmer to these works, an almost phosphorescence, which was revealed under UV light at the opening of his exhibition. Not in form, but in many other respects Jeganathan’s glowing spirituality approach to this series is reminiscent of the Dali acolyte, the American born Robert (Bob) Venosa. Venosa’s ‘Mirch Technique’ of bright tempera and oil painting (rendering pigment in layers, allowing light to pass through, reflecting off a white gesso surface on a prepared panel) is a revival of Renaissance painting. Jeganathan’s technique is different, but the brilliant, near candescent effects of this group of paintings are lustrous like those of Venosa.

Despite the urgings from some quarters, I see no similarities between the English artist and creator of the Hymn Jerusalem - William Blake and Jeganathan Ramachandran. If we were looking for painters as Renaissance men (all rounders) we might have pointed more towards Rabindranath Tagore, or Salvador Dali (painter, sculptor, writer, author and creator of his own museum) or to Jean Cocteau, artist, poet and film-maker or, should we feel the need to extend beyond Modernism - Dante Gabriel Rossetti. But little of that helps us understand the painter poet, poet painter who is the exceptional man that Jeganathan Ramachandram really is.

To understand the man, the reader or the viewer needs to read Jeganathan’s sublime poetry and gaze upon his scintillating artworks. There his soul is laid bare, his intentions clear, but profound. Find time, do visit this, or any of his many exhibitions, take a closer look at Jeganathan’s output. Understand that he mirror’s himself, and through himself, us. To gaze upon his paintings we comprehend better the connection that we all share, as we are in turn connected to the many universes, mirroring them, mirroring us, vibrating together, harmoniously and with truthful beauty too.