Late Paintings by Paresh Chakraborty - A Spiritual Synthesis of East & West

The Prince's School of Traditional Arts is pleased to host A Spiritual Synthesis of East & West, an exhibition of late paintings by Paresh Chakraborty.

Peter Donebauer, video artist and former Managing Director of Diverse Television, was a close collaborator and friend of Paresh. He writes, "Although I have worked as a moving image artist rather than as a painter, Paresh and I shared in our thirty-year friendship a common artistic dilemma. Our work has largely existed outside current established fashions or paradigms. Although mostly abstract in form, the strong spiritual dimension in our work is an uncomfortable bedfellow with a western modern art tradition imbued with a cult of the personality.

Paster

"My own roots in science, mysticism and Buddhism are different to Paresh’s Hinduism but there is enough overlap to contextualise the problem. At risk of enormous simplification, the aim within these traditions (ignoring the science) is to liberate the individual self from the illusion of experiencing life as a separate being, and to make a conscious transition to a deep experience of unity with the original source of the universe around and within us, however that is described or framed."

For much of his life, Paresh studied the sarod, a classical Indian stringed instrument, and endeavoured to express the harmony, rhythm and melody that is found particularly in Ragas. Accordingly the relationship between music and the visual image is a key focus of this exhibition.

The exhibition will take place in the Gallery at 19-22 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3SG. The nearest tube is Old Street station (Northern line). The exhibition is free and open to all, beginning on 9th February and ending at 1pm on 20th February. It is open between 10am and 8pm Monday to Friday, 9am and 5pm on Saturdays, and is closed on Sunday 15th February.