SIVANANDA NYAYAPATHI
East and West
Sivananda Nyayapathi was born and raised in India, where from childhood the Indian philosophy is part of everyday learnings. It begins as stories during youth and later turns to deep philosophical concepts. He elaborates, “Indian philosophy says that God is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. Accordingly, Indians see God everywhere—in trees,
animals, earth, water, fire and everything. Indians revere and worship God in all these forms. Thus, in general, Indians see the world in a special way—as a manifestation of God. Everything Indians do is a form of worship. For me, art is deep meditation.”
Through August 31, his artwork will be on view in the show East & West – An Artist’s View at Arts Clayton in Jonesboro, Georgia. “The paintings in this exhibition represent what I observed in India and what I observed in America in terms of landscapes, people (portraits) and still life setups,” he says.
His portrait I Am Mom, depicts his friends’ 13-year-old daughter. “The parents brought the child for a photo session. However, she was not in a mood to pose. She was too shy and self-conscious. She took her own time to get comfortable with the idea. Finally, when she did pose, she went into this pose naturally,” he says. “The pose is very dignified and it occurred to me that the kid might have seen her mother in that pose many times and naturally went into that pose imitating her unconsciously. Children learn from their parents by observing. They learn manners, mannerisms, attitudes, etc., without direct teaching. That is the idea I wanted convey in this painting. I came up with the composition of the concept and I requested the child’s mom to come and pose for me in the same pose.”
There also will be several still lifes in the exhibition, including Fruits in a Bowl, which was inspired by a trip to India he took a couple of years ago. The artist was walking by a sidewalk vendor who was selling fruits. “Unlike the other vendors, she picked up the fruits along with the leaves. She had the right idea—the freshness of the green leaves indicate how fresh the fruits were,” Nyayapathi explains. “I wanted to capture that, so I bought the fruits and did this setup in natural light.”
“The board of Arts Clayton is very proud and honored to feature Dr. Sivananda Nyayapathi in a special cultural exhibit, East & West – An Artist’s View,” says Arts Clayton Executive Director Linda Crissey. “Dr. Nyayapathi’s art tells an important story about the world as viewed by someone from Indian Diaspora—an artist who paints from two different cultural views to interpret India and America through realistic landscapes and portraits.”