Ramakrishna Behera: A wanderer’s interpretation of beauty
Monica Arora
“And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” — Pico Iyer
Artist Ramakrishna Behera seems to be in this ‘heightened state of awareness’ during his wanderlust and chance discoveries of places and motifs along the way.
Born in Odisha in 1977, young Behera acquired a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from IIT-Roorkee and then metamorphosed into a self-taught painter. That is what makes his art and his oeuvre so much more fascinating!
Nature Morte is hosting ‘The Wayfarer’, a solo show of his paintings, at their Mumbai gallery. As the title suggests, Behera is a traveller at heart and his artworks narrate a story of his trysts with landscapes and topographies through his sojourns, spanning Odisha’s countryside to the mountains in Ladakh and monasteries in India, stretching across the lanes of Italy and the American countryside.
“I like trekking and walking as travelling by foot gives many layers of visibility that is lost with speed,” says the artist, who currently resides and works in Faridabad.
It’s intriguing to discover how a travelling artist chooses the venues or spots that would make it to his canvas. “I follow my intuition while choosing a venue (or motif) to work on. Once you are travel-oriented, the mind keeps looking for new earth-motifs and things happen. Ancient historical places, geological forms, forests, rivers, volcanoes, canyons, even clouds can instigate a move in me. It’s like paying homage to planet earth. How lucky I am to be associated with this beautiful planet. Just imagine, I could have existed as a rock, fluid, gaseous cloud or even as antimatter somewhere in the everlasting universe. Earth is such an incredible place. Why not be in love with it and its inhabitants (better non-human-centric). The earth is my muse,” he says.
Indeed, each creation in the exhibition features destinations from all over the world, including China, Australia, South America and more. What makes these artworks so incredible and unique is that they reflect Behera’s reaction to the places he travels to. All are spontaneous in echoing subtle elements that catch his eye. How he re-interprets them is what makes his art so enamouring. As the artist puts it, “Everything in my art is my understanding of my surroundings.”
Behera draws inspiration from historical architecture and monuments, as also from natural landscapes and geographical motifs and all that he finds himself surrounded by, whether in his studio, home or on his travels. As he says, “I admire Mayan art, ancient Egyptian art, Greek art, Moche pottery, Bhimbetka paintings and so on. Also, I like works by Francis Bacon, Rothko, Bonnard, Matisse, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Camille Corot, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Ruisdael, David Hockney, Lascaux, Chauvet and so many more great artists.”
His oil works are akin to a virtual map that he creates for himself and then pours it along with his thoughts on the canvas. The attention to detail is immaculate — from peering into the deep recesses of a well in a painting titled ‘Into the Well’ made in 2023, to an older work from 2004 called ‘Yellow Flowers in Mr Jangid’s Garden’, where he gives a bird’s eye view of buttercup yellow blossoms growing in a landscaped garden of a residential area. From an intimate painting, ‘Book Open on Bed Table’, to the magnificent ‘Mount Olympus’, Behera’s works are glimpses of evocative narratives that flow cloaked in surreal beauty.
As Anais Nin said, “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.”
‘The Wayfarer’ is one such show wherein we can identify with the spirit of an artist who discovers aesthetics in his environment and the milieu he inhabits.
On till August 10
