C.K.G.

CKG is the artistic pen-name of the Indian yogi and mystic Sri Chinmoy (Chinmoy Kumar Ghose). And if it seems unusual to find such a man in the art world, then that very paradox is what makes his art such an exciting development. For behind his art is the profoundly vast and ancient tradition of the East, yet his work has on appeal which is wholly contemporary, completely fresh.

His paintings, in fact, represent an entirely new genre. (Yogic art, perhaps?) And, recognising this, he has given them the name Jharna-Kala, which is Bengali for Fountain-Art, art stemming from the source, the fount of creation.

Thus, while his paintings might bear comparison to Tantric art (translating the flow of life-energy into colour and form) or to the art of the Mandala and the Tanka (harmonious form as an object for concentration and contemplation), at the same time there is a freedom here, a gestural dynamism with similarities in technique, say, to 'action-painting' and Abstract Expressionism.

This need come as no surprise though. As the art critic of the Sunday Telegraph painted out in writing about an exhibition in London of CKG's paintings, the modernist, abstract movement, from Kandinsky and the Blaue Reiter group on, owes much to Indian influences.

Behind CKG's art is a harmonious and consistent philosophy, but his approach is far from the overcerebral reduction of art to what Tom Wolfe has called "the painted word."

Vibrant with life and colour, his paintings depict realms or 'worlds' which Sri Chinmoy enters during meditation. It is not 'religious' art in the traditional sense of the term; the paintings are not about religion; rather they are visual expressions of a truly mystical experience — the perception of reality as a continuous, harmonious flow.

As artist Paul Jenkins put it at a Jharna-Kala exhibition in New York, "What's here is an abundance of colour, abundance of images, abundance of things that go through your mind when you meditate."

Speaking of the same exhibition, T. J. Bergen, Secretary of the American Contemporary Artists Galleries, commented, "There's nothing static about these works. There's an organic, biological flow. It seems electrical. Instead of seeing the world as a concrete solid body where things are separate, Sri Chinmoy sees the world as a unity where all things seem to move together. The paintings are physical manifestations of his inner meditations, a reflection within the optical spectrum of what he perceives inwardly as a real, living experience. They show a higher level of consciousness."

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of CKG's output is its sheer volume and the speed at which he works. During one period of several months he was averaging 100 paintings a day. This is a function of the yogic powers he brings into play when he paints, the intense focus of concentration. And to demonstrate still further, in November 1975 he painted for 24 hours straight, completing some 16,000 pieces! In order to accomplish such remarkable feats, he says he quite literally creates time. He is not speaking metaphorically. Observers who were present spoke of his hands being 'a blur' and were not quite able to believe that what was before their eyes was actually happening.

Apart from the speed at which he works, the aspects of CKG's art which have most impressed critics are his unique use of colour and the unity of composition which he retains even in the largest and most complex canvases.

One of his large paintings, the 12' x 27' "Larger than the Largest," was praised by Henry Geldzahler, then curator of the 20th Century art collection at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Indicating the canvas, he said, "Picasso said you have to know when to paint and you have to know when to stop painting. This one is amazing. One universe; compact."

Another of his large canvases, the 13' x 25' "Journey's Battle-Victory," was specially commissioned for a display of 'billboard art', exhibited in conjunction with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Artist Paul Whitehead, who organised the exhibition, said that CKG "took the show into another realm, a whole other light." Speaking of CKG's use of colour, he went on, "It was almost vibrating. I looked at it and there were areas my eyes almost could not see. I don't know what it was. I can only talk as an artist — he put certain colours next to each other and the fact that they were on a white background made them appear as if they were vibrating. There is a great vibrance there. I can only think of it in terms of the fact that it was done in such a short span of time. It definitely comes off, comes off the canvas."

A unique film was made of CKG at work on this canvas, and it provides a valuable insight into his approach to the process of creation. Clearly painting, for him, is an act of meditation. The process is completely intuitive. He prepares himself by meditating, then draws on a deep inner wellspring, that 'fountain' of creative energy. In his own words, he "devotedly follows a streak of light."

His own comments on this remarkable process are reminiscent of nothing more than the writings of Paul Klee. Klee wrote, "The creative impulse suddenly springs to life, like a flame, passes through the hand onto the canvas, where it spreads farther until, like the spark that closes an electric circuit, it returns to its source: the eye and the mind."

Sri Chinmoy's response to this creative impulse is one of wonder, but also of gratitude and humility. The artist, he says, is a channel, a "mere instrument." And here again it seems worth quoting Paul Klee at some length as he expresses this same realisation. Comparing the artist to a tree, Klee wrote, "From the root, the sap rises up into the artist, flows through him, flows to his eye. Overwhelmed and activated by the force of the current, he conveys his vision into his work. And yet, standing at his appointed place, as the trunk of the tree, he does nothing other than gather and pass on what rises from the depths. He neither serves nor commands — he transmits. His position is humble. And the beauty at the crown is not his own; it has merely passed through him."

Klee himself was the most analytical of artists, and his expositions on the nature of abstract art demonstrate a subtle, clear and powerful intellect at work. Yet it is not fanciful to suggest that Sri Chinmoy, entirely intuitive in his approach and not in the least analytical, might almost be said to embody the theoretical precepts which Klee outlined in his philosophical lectures. For Klee was supremely aware of the importance of the intuitive, the transcendental, the magic and the mystery of art.

"Chosen are those artists," wrote Klee, "who penetrate to the region of that secret place where primeval power nurtures all evolution. There, where the power-house of all time and space — call it brain or heart of creation — activates every function; who is the artist who would not dwell there?"

Sri Chinmoy, CKG, on the strength of his meditation, has penetrated to that "secret place,” the reality behind the shifting surface of forms, the realm in which, to use his own words, "The eye of vision knows the many in the One and the One in the many."

[by Alan Spence. Alan Spence is author, poet and playwright. Former writer-in-residence, University of Glasgow.]