AN ENCHANTER’S WAND: PARESH MAITY’S VENICE“I travel all over the world and sometimes the same place offers
many things to me. I have travelled to Venice many times over the
past 20 years-and every time it is an intoxicating moment. My
photographs capture the perfect symmetry of sight, sound and scent.
I have always liked to stand and watch the gondola as it glides past
the elegantly decaying brickwork of Venice’s music academy. And I
keep looking at the water and the little bridges and networks and
the people. I love the Gothic architecture-the little windows and
the arches and corners. There is something so classic in Venice,
something no other place can give us.”When you look at the black and white blown up images you cannot
forget that Maity as a water-colourist has employed a camera obscura to
obtain the topographical precision which was the signature of Venetian
view-painting. But Maity whom this critic christened as India’s
Turner precisely two decades ago, has an ability to use the intensity
of projections – frequently embellished with fantasy in the style of a
latter-day digital snapper – to create a city of crisp, crystalline drama:
imperious, monumental and spectacular. However, when he wields
the camera, Maity gives us a signature of softening when he captures
Venice’s architectural contours and seduced tonal extravaganzas out
of its seas and skies. Paresh Maity’s Serenissima is moody, magical, itis ephemeral and it is every bit exotic, perhaps as much
oriental fishing village as Old World cultural jewel.