‘I’ve presented a tale of vanished empires’
Artist Rameshwar Broota’s photo exhibition highlights the destruction on Mother Earth. NANDA DAS reports
Posted February 15, 2011, The Pioneer, dailypioneer.com
Be it the places, people or objects, veteran artist-turned-photographer Rameshwar Broota believes in showcasing everything in detail. Within the huge frames, the photographer captures textures of Mother Earth and tries to narrate a story hidden behind the places. “Each place has some hidden elements to it. These elements can only be noticed if we have a closer look at it. Through my photographs, I have tried to shed light on the same. For example, one of the photographs Where Does The Ganga Flow highlights the chaos and clutter and not just the beauty of the ghats of the holy river. The city of Haridwar is losing its charm and is becoming as congested as Delhi and Mumbai. These photos are a tale of vanished empires and abandoned cities across the globe,” informs Broota about his ongoing exhibition This End To The Other at Shridharni Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam in the Capital.
This is artist’s second photography exhibition after a span of three years. His first was all about nuances of photography and the role it can play in representation. Having started photography at an early age with a box camera, Broota has upgraded technology in both the camera he now uses and the computer that helps him create the required compositions, especially for the mammoth-sized diptychs and triptychs.
About his exhibition, he says, “The scale of these photos is much different in terms of everything. I have gone beyond the common subjects of photography.”
One of his photos, Tactile Spaces, captures a donkey and a tractor. Broota says he wanted to highlight the focus on machines today and how machines are spoiling the natural beauty of Earth. “The sand has an imprints of a tractor and the donkey just watches everything as he stands in a corner. It signifies that we all know how much destruction is caused by the increasing use of machines but most of us don’t want to do anything about it,” says Broota.
On use of life-size frames, the 70-year-old artist says, “It is not easy to enlarge a shot to show this kind of detailing where even the smallest crevice of a hillside, finest texture of a rock or the weathered door of a distant house is visible.”
Broota has even captured human bodies extensively. He has featured the pores, wrinkles and textures to show how our skin is similar to Earth. “I have never captured the body as an object of display but here it is used as a subject to show how many complex layers lie within our skin. The growth and decay of human body has always been a part of my paintings,” says Broota. The exhibition ends February 21.
