A photograph by Bivas Bhattacharjee

Photography was a passion Bivas Bhattacharjee (picture below by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) shared with the late painter Bikash Bhattacharjee. While the father captivated Calcutta with his masterly paintings, the son was dreaming of using photography as a medium to create “visual cues to emotions and experiences”.

“Baba (Bikash) loved taking photos; it was a hobby with him. He bought me my first camera on my sixth birthday and all the cameras that followed. He encouraged me at every step,” recalls Bivas, who is ready to unveil his “art photography” with a solo show at Sanskriti Art Gallery following a three-year photography course at University College Falmouth, England. The exhibition will be on from May 14 to 28.

Titled Leaving Behind My House, the show presents a set of 20 frames which, according to Bivas, record the 20 steps of the atma or the 20 layers of experience through which one must pass.

The “house” here is a metaphor for the body which one must leave behind but it has nothing to do with his father’s recent demise, assures Bivas. It shows the ascent of a soul through stages of realisation. One of the items to be displayed is a blank white surface and the photographs have been made to fit square frames “because one cannot measure the length and breadth of ishwar; to me he is equilateral on all sides,” points out Bivas.

“While my father was moved by social concern, my work has always been philosophical and abstract. Documentary photography has never appealed to me,” says the 27-year-old.

The frames are from a bunch of 10-20,000 that he has clicked over a period of four years. “I have chosen them not because of their visual strength but because of how well they reflect my emotional state when I perceive, even if for a moment, the 20 significant stages of consciousness development on my spiritual path,” adds Bivas.