www.meghanad.com @ganpulemeghanad

Meghanad Ganpule has been a fine art photographer; His work has always been intimate as he is an award-winning portrait artist who studied at the JJ School of Art. However, the artist has moved on to using the camera as his brush and his approach of capturing life has always been gentle and subtle. Small wonder then, that his muse has been flowers, captured in black-and-white. What Meghanad had strived to achieve in his portrait of flowers is to paint with light. The artist has strived to imbue his subjects with a soft luminosity that lends them a character and personality. His minimalist approach to his subject is enhanced by a love for geometry and it has led to deliberate arranging of shapes that would consequently allude to the unification and balance of mathematics. Working with a Hasselblad 6 x 6 camera Meghanad’s preferred a square format. For Meghanad, flowers are not just beautiful objects but a vehicle to convey human emotions. His first solo Paintings by Light (2004) at the Piramal Gallery, NCPA were well received and he has gone on to have two group exhibitions.

Statement

Inside out captures a completely different body of work by the artist. Here he has stepped back from Classical black-and-white frames and moved away from minimalist portraits of flowers, instead focusing his attention on the teaming city of Mumbai. Like a documentary photographer, Meghanad has stripped his frames of artistic poise going instead for the gritty images of everyday life. Even here though, the artist looks for geometry in form and is enthused by a playful humor concealed in mundane situations. In other frames he looks for and creates a narrative between urban signboards and people to coax out the hidden stories that reside in the simple juxtaposition of the two.

Post India’s Independence, In the name of development, we started urbanisation and industrialisation. Since 1950, we have depleted our natural resources for the past 68 years. Due to this we have to face the consequences of global warming today.

Potable water is supplied, usually by the municipal corporations, but in recent times it has become insufficient, because of the growing population. By building large dams, there may be benefit to cities as well as all the towns doting on the outskirts, but unfortunately, we don’t see/witness this happening; and as a result, this natural resource is, is getting wasted … Do the towns have good water supply system? No, in fact, with the vested interest of “the Tanker Lobby”, many towns are made to depend, on the tanker’s water; and not only that, but the corporations find it hard to establish and function at such towns.

Even our Hill Stations, witness such devastation. On the local level, there is no awareness, and it is not created, hence people build homes/shelters, up to the top of any hill station.

Hence, it is necessary for us to conserve the natural resources that are available, only then, will the earth truly be abundant with water, trees, and soil. If we can utilise at least one, such as water, then the rampant use of indestructible plastic bottles, that have reached even the remotest small villages, shall recede and will balance our earth’s natural environment, again.