From star-gazing to photography, Deepti Naval has affected the switch
from actress to lens woman with felicity. “In search of Another
Sky,” her exhibition of colored photographs at Gallery Escape
which began in Delhi this week, documents a personal journey through
this rugged and difficult terrain. There is a freshness and curiosity
in the manner in which she draws out the contrast between the fragility
of the farmer’s cottage and the stolidity of the monastery
that has weathered so many centuries.
As a photographer she has not documented
Ladakh of the coffee table book, as the last bastion of Mahayana
Buddhism, the land of ochre- clothed monks with their elaborate
prayer rituals. It is a much more humble vision, which captures
small groups at study or prayer. The landscape itself, magnificent
in its stark splendor and the extremely poignant conditions of eking
out a living there are on view.
Deepti exploits the basic colours
of the landscape which are strongly etched against the near monochromatic
snow-clad mountains, to record a more personal, moving experience.
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