Times of India, Chandigarh Times
05/03/2001 , By Vandana Shukla
Camera and the Man (na)
Vandana Shukla
He can see what others miss out in a frame. He is an artist who crosses all boundaries to create something distinct, a fusion of different forms, if it may be called so. He does it to travel beyond limitations of expression, offered by a single medium. No wonder his camera looks beyond the apparent and captures the multiplicity of Diwan Manna’s persona.
The hybrid, techno art images – two-dimensional sculptures these have been called – read like poetry. These multi-layered visuals have pioneered a new medium for artists who strive to expand their scope. And for himself the ability to dress ordinary objects into wonderful pictorial tales has taken Diwan Manna places.
His very first series called Alienation, the lyrical tale of loneliness captured in the corridors of Manna’s college, established him as a photographer with a distinct signature. Though he has changed his style a lot, since then, the underlying spaces exploring the inner and the outer world, have remained the same.
His search is the search of the extraordinary, to find some roots in the ordinariness of life. To have an anchor. He explores the limitless human world, its inner spaces with fantasies and dreams and the realities. In the last one year Manna has been invited to the most prestigious galleries in Europe. In Germany, Berlin, a private gallery Bellevue, showed his collection titled ‘Shores of the unknown’. It received such a response that he was invited by the Museum Of Indian Art to show his works for their first exhibition after the unification of East and the West Germany. The Museum bought 14 of his photographs for their permanent collection, and Manna happened to be the only photographer from India who was invited to show his works there.
This was followed by an exhibition at Gallerie Bateau Lavoir, Paris, where great artists like Picasso have displayed their works. Unlike here, says Diwan, all the galleries give minimum eight weeks time to the artists to show their works.
An invitation by The Swedish Academy took him to Sweden where he is involved with a project on Swedish poetry translated into Hindi. Manna is creating visuals for the book. His trip to America again is in connection with a project he’s working on.
The bordering line between life and death, between hope and despair, between violence and love has always fascinated Manna. He wants to explore through his pictures the ecstatic state of trance that the Sufi singers sometimes seem to be in. Then there’s also the exploration of the `self’ through his nudes.
FRAMED: Chandy Times finds photographer and artist Diwan Manna on the other side of the lens for a change.
