An artist who explores the idea of life, death and confusion about the universe

Om Soorya explores the idea of life, death and confusion about the universe. Born in 1977, Om Soorya completed his MFA from University of Hydrebad and his BFA from College of Fine Arts, Trivandrum, India. He has had shows at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Mumbai, Nature Morte Art Gallery, Delhi, Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hydrebad and Khoj, New Delhi. The Guild Art Gallery presented a solo show of his works last year. The exhibition comprises his recent works that continue an exploration of his stylistic surreal landscapes.

Om Soorya’s paintings show neither the past nor do they really represent our own surroundings. They have neither nightfall nor daybreak, neither cities nor villages, but images of both rural and urban life. He takes a cue from life around that is surrounded by a spate of contradictions. He adds:

"Villages become urban when you displace someone, often improperly, from one place to another. I talk about the nature of reality and urban and rural juxtapositions as a search for the constant truth in the reality, which surrounds me. Reality doesn’t merely mean the socio-political arena; it relates to the most inner truth of everything.

"Conscious mind enters the real world and it searches for the logic in reality. Here, all doubts on reality emerge by itself, from the realms of the conscious mind. The question of existence and the reason of birth, growth and death are the phenomenon to be unveiled. At the same time, there is an inherent obligation to live. Concurrent to this thought, the unconscious mind manifests an imaginary world of dreams. Sometimes the nature of the idea is a kind of contradiction on the present realities."

In essence, his work is being just like a pendulum: in between the anxieties over the present realities and the quest for total existence. The idea of life, death and confusion about the universe, recur in his works.