Angkor Wat might be a temple complex at Angkor in the heart of Cambodia. But here in Hyderabad, the name takes on a completely different significance. 11 artists from across the country travelled to the temple site to take part in a ‘Guru-shishya’ art workshop where senior artist Prabhakar Kolte took on the mantle of Guru.The result - Angkor Wat: an Indian Perspective, the painting exhibition.Speaking about the workshop, Aditya Bajoria, an art collector and also the organiser of the event, said, “Angkor Wat is a place with rich heritage. We felt it would be a very inspiring place for the artists. Another aspect we wanted to revive and promote was the guru-shishya connection. So we chose as diverse a group as possible to train under Kolte.”From the workshop arose a series of paintings which are now on tour across the country, currently visiting the city.The paintings are atypical, especially considering they stem from a connection with a religious place. Mostly abstract art, the painting explain dreamscapes, fantasies and the wild tempermental creativity trapped within the artist’s fingers. Paintings by Dileep Sharma show an exotic woman with bright fluorescent colours that add texture to the canvas. Barely covered and almost deified, these women seem like apsaras from a parallel universe. However, Sharma wasn’t the only painter inspired by the apsaras.Swaroop Mukherji’s paintings try to replicate the carvings and the temple itself. Shadowy images in grey hues show an apsara almost in a silhouette form. Taking off on a completely different tangent, Geroge Martin’s sketches were a perhaps a rendering of the saying, “Everything comes full circle.” Choosing to instead depict the brain’s right side cognition of Angkor Wat, his canvas has an elaborate yet abstract connection of seemingly non-related aspects that create this large circular Eco-system of a world from a dream.Alok Bal’s paintings show a large influence of Buddhism where the main subject is Buddha himself, while Sudanshu Sutar paints the head of Buddha, while juxtaposing it with the evolution of man.An interesting addition to the collection was a 3-D rendering of what appears to be Nandi by R Balasubramaniam - perhaps reminiscent of the temple during its days as a symbol of Hinduism. Other painters at the exhibition include Avijit Dutta, Binoy Verghese, Birendra Pani, Chandra Bhattacharya and Pratul Dash. Angkor Wat: an Indian perspective will be on display at the Kalakriti Art Gallery till April 23.
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