ATLANTA, GA.- The Michael C. Carlos Museum will present a series of vibrant photographs by contemporary artist Manjari Sharma; digital works, drawings, and paintings by Abhishek Singh; and modern chromolithographs produced by the Raja Ravi Varma Press in an exhibition entitled Transcendent Deities of India: The Everyday Occurrence of the Divine, on view January 18 through May 17, 2020.

For Hindus in India, images of gods and goddesses are an integral part of religious practice. These images inspire worshippers and artists alike, populating the art of the region for thousands of years and demonstrating their power through hundreds of millions of daily encounters as part of rituals at temples, shrines, and other settings within India and the broader diaspora. Transcendent Deities of India offers modern and contemporary interpretations of traditional imagery that position Hindu gods and goddesses within viewers’ frame of reference, ensuring their seamless applicability in new eras.

Varma’s prints popularize subjects
Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906) was an Indian artist whose paintings are considered to be among the best examples of the fusion of Indian traditions with the style and techniques of European academic art. Varma's paintings were well regarded, but it was his vision for distributing his images widely through chromolithography that ensured his continuing renown. He founded several presses to make his images more accessible to the general public; as a result, reproductions of his artwork depicting Hindu gods and goddesses could be found in many homes and businesses. As the works in the exhibition demonstrate, owners of these prints frequently had them embellished with fabric, embroidery, and other materials to further adorn the deities depicted.

Sharma’s lens enlivens tradition
Associated with Hindu worship, darshan is a Sanskrit word meaning “vision” or “view” and refers to the experience of connection between deity and viewer. Historically, Hindu deities have been depicted predominantly through sculpture and painting. Manjari Sharma, who moved to the US to earn her MFA in photography, chose to turn her lens to the deities she had grown up with in India. Sharma’s elaborately staged Darhsan series came to fruition through her collaboration with a team of Mumbaibased artisans, sculptors, and painters, whose sets, costumes, and styling transform models into archetypal representations of Hindu deities.

Singh demonstrates the continuing impact of tradition
Abhishek Singh's art reimagines subjects drawn from the major epic narratives of India such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, connecting the spiritual and the symbolic to the fantastic. Singh’s dynamic contemporary perspective incorporates graphic novels and animation and reflects conceptual concerns around the intersection between the temporal and the sacred by rendering traditional subjects anew. A consummate draftsman, he utilizes traditional images along with modern representations such as those of Raja Ravi Varma to demonstrate the ongoing relevance of these gods and goddesses to contemporary life.