Origami artist Ankon Mitra sees the process of folding as akin to pilgrimage that converts and transforms Nature. The potential that a fold of any material––when made repetitively––has, to create magnificent objects, intrigues him.
“I am fascinated with the process of folding in nature. It always amazes me how the Himalayas rose up from the seabed, after multiple folds over millions of years, and became the tallest mountain ranges in the world,” Mitra says.
The 40-year-old founder of Hexagramm Design, an architecture and landscape design company, is an architect by training, but an origami artist by passion. One look at his works, and it is conspicuous why he draws this uncanny parallel between pilgrimage and the process of folding. Almost all of his works are essentially a cluster of numerous tiny folds of a medium––steel, aluminium, cloth, banana silks, stone, ceramics, brass, resin and of course paper––that when painstakingly put together, almost like meditation, take form of larger-than-life works that allow the viewers to get lost, perhaps even escape.
Take for instance his marble installation titled ‘Tessellations in Terrains and Topographies’, where a tough material like the marble has gone through the folding process and is standing on its own gravel. Alongside is the brick, replete with scars.
“The brick represents the mother––the one who takes cuts and bruises for us. I wanted to put it here and make her part of the conversation,” says Mitra, explaining how each marble piece is cut with a stone cutter and joined together on the brick. The work is part of the artist’s latest exhibition titled A Pilgrim’s Progress at Delhi’s Gallery Art Positive that marks 15 years of both the artist and the gallery.
However, for Mitra, A Pilgrim’s Progress is also about gratitude, soul-searching and paying homage to his grandmother. In many ways, the show gives a peek into 40-year-old artist’s life, the women who inspired him, his bowing down to the forces of nature and learning the idea of letting go. The inspiration for majority of these works came after he and his mother recovered from Covid. “When we came out of Covid, we realised the importance of being alive and taking small steps every day. The experience was very humbling. That gave a perspective on how to convert that feeling of deep melancholy to creation,” the artist says.
‘The Trinity Room’ showcases this in the best possible way. It is a regular closed door from the outside, which transforms into a meditative space as you enter. Pristine white folds of origami made with polypropylene are hung across the room full of mirrors.
“Within each one of us there’s a force of creation, preservation, growth and destruction. So there’s a pillar of creation, preservation and destruction here. The movement from one to the other is like a cycle, so these are opposite poles but connected. This trinity room shows how we’re infinite, and not just the body,” explains the artist.
In ‘Memories of a Warm Embrace’, Mitra pays homage to his didima (maternal grandmother). The artist has taken a classic Banarasi red sari, pasted it on a hard material and hung it in a crisscross pattern from the roof of the gallery.
The sari keeps his grandmother’s memory alive, he says, adding, “Often these heirloom saris are kept away, but this is a way to preserve a memory. Here’s an opportunity to have them in your space as a living memory. It gives a fabulous dynamism and flow in the space which is how I remember my grandmother. She was a very dynamic person, raising five kids with limited means.”
As far as Mitra’s art practice is concerned, this show is seminal. He’s challenged himself and his team to work with tough materials such as glass and marble for the first time, and has used DuPont Tyvec, a tough material resembling paper.
“DuPont Tyvec was invented during the Vietnam War. When mothers and wives would write letters for their loved ones which would get lost in the jungles of Vietnam, the US government approached DuPont to make an envelope which would be resilient to heat, dust, and that is how it was born,” explains Mitra.
From DuPont Tyvec to the Japanese Kinstugi technique–– Mitra’s art installations are diverse. At the gallery, a black hand-painted wall is adorned with ceramic ware embellished with gold lines. Mitra explains, “About four years ago, our company worked with ceramic tableware and the process of forming folds in tableware was a long one resulting in a lot of wastage. I couldn’t part with all these broken pieces and wanted to celebrate them. We joined them with gold powder mixed with resin and created these pieces.”
Mitra’s artworks and his ideas of life are clearly a showcase into this architect’s life, who isn’t just an origami artist, but also a philosopher and someone with a deep reflection of life.
WHEN & WHERE
A Pilgrim’s Progress; Gallery Art Positive, New Delhi; Till July 15