NEW YORK – Using painting and live models, sometimes also painted to produce theatrical effects, and juxtaposing his pictures with them, well-known photo-artist Diwan Manna’s compositions leave the viewer baffled.
Diwan, who is to visit the US shortly, is not content with merely capturing or freezing the moment. “Agreed that a good picture in the sense of being a `froze moment’ requires a special skill, but it is still a mere documentation,” says he.
“A photograph ideally should be a piece of art and must convey more than the obvious, provoking the viewer to probe and introspect.” Therefore, the mating of the two mediums in a harmonious blend.
Most of Diwan’s pictures have the painting as a backdrop. For instance, in one of his creations he has a model with here face painted in poster colors sitting in front of a painting by a local artist. The end result has the effect of a transparency which is breathtaking.
Diwan, who hails from Bareta village in Punjab, shot of fame in 1984 with a series of his paintings that vividly captured violence, which at the time had become an inex tricable aspect of the situation in India’s northern state.
“My starting point was the phenomenal upsurge of violence seen in all walks of our emotional, social and political life. My work has grown in the shadow of political violence in the last decade in my home state of Punjab,” he says.
As a result of what I have had to witness of human suffering in the spate of incessant killing and counter killing, I tried to create the collapse of our sensitivities in all the theaters of violence; in Afghanistan; Jammu and Kashmir; Sri Lanka etc. I am notmerely interested in presenting images of destruction of human goodness, courage and beauty, but I try to tape the unsuspected and as yet unrealized sources of tenderness, fortitude and humanity.”
According to him, “Though, at the face of it, violence is aimed at men, women are the ultimate sufferers. As a child, I saw there was little empathy towards widows. This seems to have affected me subconsciously.” The series of work which emerged from this sensitivity portrays widows sharing grief, consoling each other clutching on to their children against a crumbling wall. Todate, hehasheld several exhibitions. His photographs of the Taj Mahal were exhibited in 1994 at the La Route des Endes Paris and in 1995 AIFACS organized a photo show at New Delhi. His work has taken him to several countries to critical acclaim. As a participant for South Asian Visual Arts Festival, his photo prints were exhibited at Wolverhampton, UK, UK, in 1993. Initially, he was selected as part of a six-member group. Later, his works were chosen for a one man show and he tourned 10 cities of London.
Diwan, who is yet a bachelor at age 37, hasn’t ruled out marriage though he is happy to be himself. For, he says, “The right kind of relationship can certainly help you grow. Marriage does have its own charm otherwise why would men succumb to it?” As for recogn ition and money. Diwan points out that “recognition is essential for the artist to grow.
But, money is incidental and not the prime mover.” In the light of other artists who worship Mammon, Diwan certainly, like his compositions, is an enigma.
