(India's noted artist and journalist Prakash Bal Joshi interviewed Ravi Shekhar. )
Soft spoken Ravi,sporting salt and pepper beard, represents growing trend in India where creative artist remains anchored in their cultural roots and at the same time try to understand and imbibe contemporary global trends in art field while practicing whatever medium they are comfortable with.
Ravi Shekhar born and brought up at the bank of River Ganges at Varanasi, also known as Benaras is a sensitive person. Impressions and memories of early childhood at Varanasi, cultural capital of India, could be seen in later part of his work as a cameraman, videographer and off late in his art work in mixed media.
As he narrated his childhood fancies, fears and urge to grow one realizes impact of the historical city must have on him as a creative person. This is a city which over centuries has emerged as a melting pot of divergent sub-cultures of the entire subcontinent where traditional rituals make death and life come together.
His father a school teacher and Sanskrit scholar had tremendous influence on him as he began growing along with his teachers who not only taught subjects in the school but gave in-depth understanding and broader outlook to encompass life. As a student he graduated from Benaras HinduUniversity in 1980s and remained grooved in the rich cultural life of the city which presented numerous visuals to generations of internationally renowned photographers like Raghu Rai & Raghubir Singh. Taking inspiration from these shutterbugs, he developed passion for photography, did a certificate course in photography from the university and even before he finished his course pictures taken by him began appearing in local print media.
His love for camera has remained intact despite several ups and down in his long career which forced him to travel to Mumbai – Eldorado for vast Indian population- and continue his journey with camera. In Mumbai with a camera in hand, it was not very difficult for him to enter the Bollywood and click photographs of glitterati of the cine world. With the advancement of technology, he was quick to shift to video and mastered its technique. It was a great struggle for survival and at the same time an opportunity to interact at various levels with vibrant metropolis like Mumbai. It was difficult, but Ravi somehow managed to maintain a healthy balance between his commercial assignments as well a spare time for his creative work.
He had great time in capturing art and artist on videos in his own style trying to understand creative passion of an artist and his actual work. Out of this love for art he developed his one minute video project to capture contemporary artists in Mumbai and surrounding area to catch them on real time.
Interaction with artists as a documentary filmmaker, also gave anopportunity to Ravi to bring out his basic skills as an artist. His abstract work in mix-media was presented in the show titled - 'Meaningless' – exhibited in LegacyArt Gallery in Mumbai. His still photography also earned reputation as he exhibited his own work in shows organized by WWF-INDIA at India Habitat Center,New Delhi.
His work was admired by media and art lovers at a group show at Museum Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda Mumbai, the Artist Camp organized by BendreArt Foundation, Project Dharavi (biggest slum in Asia) at Kala Ghoda Art Festival,Mumbai.
His short art films also show his sensitivity as an artist. 'BLUR-The Baiju Parthan Show' (2004), 'Messanger of the free zone- Himmat Shah' (2005) ‘Me &Moon’ a short film based on the show of sculptor M K Wanjari, ‘BEING RAGHU RAI’ a long documentary on ace Indian photographer,
“Regarding the Cone”(5.56 min.) a short film about artist Yashwant Deshmukh’s show at Jahangir Art Gallery are some of the few examples in which he excelled as a visual narrator.
‘GHOST TRANSMEMOIR’ (56min.) film on Mumbai as the part of installation art of the contemporary Indian artist Bose Krishnamachari helped him emerged as a leading video artist.The project was later installed in New York, Dubai, Amsterdam, and London and Paris.
His recent visit to Europe will further help him to hone his skills and further explore his inner creativity.
-Prakash Bal Joshi
Ravi Shekhar born and brought up at the bank of River Ganges at Varanasi, also known as Benaras is a sensitive person. Impressions and memories of early childhood at Varanasi, cultural capital of India, could be seen in later part of his work as a cameraman, videographer and off late in his art work in mixed media.
As he narrated his childhood fancies, fears and urge to grow one realizes impact of the historical city must have on him as a creative person. This is a city which over centuries has emerged as a melting pot of divergent sub-cultures of the entire subcontinent where traditional rituals make death and life come together.
His father a school teacher and Sanskrit scholar had tremendous influence on him as he began growing along with his teachers who not only taught subjects in the school but gave in-depth understanding and broader outlook to encompass life. As a student he graduated from Benaras HinduUniversity in 1980s and remained grooved in the rich cultural life of the city which presented numerous visuals to generations of internationally renowned photographers like Raghu Rai & Raghubir Singh. Taking inspiration from these shutterbugs, he developed passion for photography, did a certificate course in photography from the university and even before he finished his course pictures taken by him began appearing in local print media.
His love for camera has remained intact despite several ups and down in his long career which forced him to travel to Mumbai – Eldorado for vast Indian population- and continue his journey with camera. In Mumbai with a camera in hand, it was not very difficult for him to enter the Bollywood and click photographs of glitterati of the cine world. With the advancement of technology, he was quick to shift to video and mastered its technique. It was a great struggle for survival and at the same time an opportunity to interact at various levels with vibrant metropolis like Mumbai. It was difficult, but Ravi somehow managed to maintain a healthy balance between his commercial assignments as well a spare time for his creative work.
He had great time in capturing art and artist on videos in his own style trying to understand creative passion of an artist and his actual work. Out of this love for art he developed his one minute video project to capture contemporary artists in Mumbai and surrounding area to catch them on real time.
Interaction with artists as a documentary filmmaker, also gave anopportunity to Ravi to bring out his basic skills as an artist. His abstract work in mix-media was presented in the show titled - 'Meaningless' – exhibited in LegacyArt Gallery in Mumbai. His still photography also earned reputation as he exhibited his own work in shows organized by WWF-INDIA at India Habitat Center,New Delhi.
His work was admired by media and art lovers at a group show at Museum Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda Mumbai, the Artist Camp organized by BendreArt Foundation, Project Dharavi (biggest slum in Asia) at Kala Ghoda Art Festival,Mumbai.
His short art films also show his sensitivity as an artist. 'BLUR-The Baiju Parthan Show' (2004), 'Messanger of the free zone- Himmat Shah' (2005) ‘Me &Moon’ a short film based on the show of sculptor M K Wanjari, ‘BEING RAGHU RAI’ a long documentary on ace Indian photographer,
“Regarding the Cone”(5.56 min.) a short film about artist Yashwant Deshmukh’s show at Jahangir Art Gallery are some of the few examples in which he excelled as a visual narrator.
‘GHOST TRANSMEMOIR’ (56min.) film on Mumbai as the part of installation art of the contemporary Indian artist Bose Krishnamachari helped him emerged as a leading video artist.The project was later installed in New York, Dubai, Amsterdam, and London and Paris.
His recent visit to Europe will further help him to hone his skills and further explore his inner creativity.
-Prakash Bal Joshi
