Trees Take On Unique Forms In Ompal Sansanwal’s Art

NEW DELHI, (IANS) – Trees take on myriad forms — Krishna holds aloft the Govardhan hill, Christ’s Last Supper, and Shiva as Nataraja, for instance – in National Award-winning artist Ompal Sansanwal’s 60 paintings.

It’s an intricately crafted set of paintings that he has worked on for the past 15 years. The paintings comprise mostly acrylic and pen and ink on canvas or watercolors and pen and ink on canvas.

The painting bear Ompal’s trademark style — with the long, sinuous tree roots and the dense foliage merging to give shape to the stories he tells — whether of gods and goddesses, or from Indian mythology, or just take on human-like forms as they clasp each other in an embrace, or even dance.

“When I draw the trees, they come out in a meditative form,” Sansanwal said. “As I begin drawing, I have no idea what form the painting will take. It just takes shape on its own. I am unconscious of what I am doing, and always get too absorbed in the work.

Referring to his painting of Rabindranath Tagore, he says: “Like Tagore gave enlightenment to the world, the tree too is giving enlightenment to the world from eons ago.”

Trees have fascinated Sansanwal from his childhood and he would spend hours gazing at the peepul, banyan, mango, guava and jamun trees in the ‘baghichi’, or garden, behind his house in south Delhi’s Mehrauli neighborhood. And as he gazed at them, the trees would take on the shape of humans and he would try to look for the eyes and mouth.

“In my trees you will find faces, human figures. I have not copied any tree; these shapes come from within me,” Sansanwal adds.

Born in 1964, Ompal received the National Award in 2002. The Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy had also feted him back in 1991.