Taking inspiration from this, ophthalmologist Dr Gangadhar and popular artist Ramesh Gorjala came together to create the exhibition, The Eye of the Faith.Dr Gangadhar, who has a 44-year long practice behind him, created a collection of highly magnified photographs of the eye. After a chance meeting with Ramesh, the two decided to create a unique pictorial presentation incorporating the magnified images of the eye into paintings done by the latter.With an interesting juxtaposition of science and faith completely obliterating the age-old debate of science versus religion and vice-versa, Ramesh, whose typical artistic style borrows heavily from mythological and folk characters, weaves the stories from Hindu mythology around these fascinating orb-like elements.Says Dr Gangadhar, “There are those that believe and those that question faith. Neither can prove that God exists or that God doesn’t. So what we did was literally paint what we saw. With the photograph of the eye as the central perspective, we discussed what we saw and Ramesh beautifully brought that out in the paintings. Since we are both believers, you will find that instead of going for something abstract, we played around with stories from Hindu mythology.”The paintings are done on a mixed media canvas that have the photographs printed on to them which capture the inner workings of the eye at nearly 40 times magnification. Dr Gangadhar who used to take these photographs to aid his lectures and presentations to students and colleagues, says, “As they say a picture eliminates the need for a 1000 words, I felt it was better if I took these pictures. I’ve taken photographs at even 3000 times the magnification, but they were not really necessary for this project.”The paintings each have a story to tell. With depictions of Hanuman, Shiva-Parvathi, Narasimha with Lakshmi, Buddha, Matsya-avataram of Vishnu, Manmadhudu and Krishna, each painting has a vivid retinal orb at the crux of it.‘Suryamithram’ depicts Hanuman trying to capture the Sun but finally accepting it as an eternal source of knowledge and bowing down to it while ‘Sameeri’ shows the eye as a gateway between two worlds. ‘Sebala’ shows the cow of Vasista muni with what appears to be the foetus of a calf in her womb. ‘Srikalahasti’ is a colourful portrayal of the sivalingam with the eye next to it, only the eye has a distinct figure that looks like the symbol ‘Aum’ in it.“Most of the paintings have erupted from the photograph of the eye itself What we wanted to show was that science and art while parallel to each other, are somewhere along one and the same,” concludes the doctor.The paintings are priced at Rs 2.34 lakhs a piece.
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