Bhakti Rasa - The Highest Ecstasy
Medium: Textile
Narsinh Mehta (1414-1481, Gujarat) is well-known all-over India as a bhakta–poet. His devotional bhajans are sung to this day. He was the first devotee whose songs, about 740 in number, became very popular and attracted people by the depth of his faith and simplicity. His poetry greatly enriched the bhakti literature of medieval India. Narsinh Mehta’s devotion to his Beloved was so pure that he had no qualms in singing bhajans in the area where the town’s lower classes resided. On one such occasion he sang: “Vaishnavjan to tene kahiyere, je peed parãi jãne re”... i.e. He is called a Vaishnav (Hari’s beloved) who understands other people’s misery...
Narsinh Mehta was oblivion of poverty and miseries he had, and he only sang the songs of Lord Krishna and danced in ecstasy. He had unspeakable faith in Krishna that he would be there all the time for him playing flute and taking care of him.
Artist: J Hariyani
Medium: Textile
Size: 42” x 36”
Textile Interpretation: Platypus Design Studio
Images of artist and team in Textile Studio
Note By Artist: J Hariyani
I see our ecosphere as big interconnected web. Things unfold as we pass thru passage of time. Being an Architect and Urban Planner; I have fun working with infinite dimensions.
Often Architects try to connect art with architecture, architecture with music so and so forth and we hear quotes such as….
"Architecture is art, nothing else" ….
“Architecture is the greatest of the arts” …
“Architecture at its best becomes works of art that we can move through and live in” …
To me it is about life. It is about interaction of “jivas” and “natural & built forms”. These interactions create built environment and built experiences. It is about how built environment can make a difference for the progress in individual’s life and for the society at large. The more you practice this phenomenon it grows on you and becomes your nature. At the core what matters is Values you believe in and how it guides “Design” & “Design Process”. It takes you to journey of discovering something, learning something new. It brings joy of thinking, sketching, communicating, making, creating and recreating.
Practicing across the globe and working with many cultures, new materials and new technologies implanted multi-disciplinary approach in me. It has influenced me and how I design and create … be it Architecture or Art. It is impossible for one to be an expert in all aspects. One cannot master every material or every technology and that is where collaboration and collaborative creation comes to play. This is what we do day in and day out while practicing Architecture or Urban scale projects. While travelling and designing projects often I have ideas that are not directly applied on given project, but it sure provides me new avenue to explore them further as fun side projects that leads to my journey as an Artist as well. It takes me to different expeditions … sometimes it is journey of digital sketching using new app and tab, other times it takes me on tour of designing textiles or leads to creating ceramic art and titanium art and so and so forth.
Last year while visiting Nathdwara and Haridwar with family I ran into few art books on miniature paintings. The paintings that excited me most were on life of Lord Krishna and various forms of landscaped environments. Similarly, while on banks of Ganges; an evening Aarti and energy of lights energized me. These left impressions in me that lead to an idea of making digital paintings on Lord Krishna, urban vs rural landscapes and art on energy of Aarti and more. I started experimentation on new app on tablet which resulted in unique style. The creation of about 20+ digital paintings were a consequence of journey to Nathdwara, Haridwar followed by journey of app + tablet. Later interaction with Artist Prakash Vani and his Team of Platypus Lab textile weavers inspired me to work with them to transform my digital arts and canvases into textile and other mediums.
