Japanese paper art 'Chigir-e' show by Indian exponent

The ecstasy of love, myriad facets of nature and the interplay of human life with nature has been captured through bits of paper arranged here into beautiful pieces of art, in Chigir-e, a popular Japanese style.
"Flight to Freedom", an exhibition of paintings created in the collage style joining together torn pieces of paper, by engineer and steel technologist Jyotirmoy Roy who picked up the art during his stay in Japan, was inaugurated here late last evening.
"A Japanese friend had gifted me a piece and I was awestruck by the complexity of the art within its simplicity," says Ray on the beginnings of his interest in the art style.

According to a popular story, the sense of melancholy and hollowness among the people of Japan after World War II gave birth to an art form conceived when an artist unified some assorted fragmented bits of paper to depict hope. Chigiri-e evoked people to revive by knitting the lost threads of their lives together.
Traditionally, however, Chigiri-e aesthetics is said to have originated during the Heian period (794-1185 CE) presented in conjunction with calligraphy.
Remarkably, the art form uses no paint or brush as a medium or tool. A general impression of water or oil based painting is created by pasting pieces of paper in a layered fashion. It is only upon closer scrutiny that one discovers the medium to be paper.

Ray says his work took him all over the world with a longest period of stay in Japan - about 20 years.
"Although I have sketched and painted wherever I have gone, it was in Japan that I learnt the art of Chigiri-e. In this art form of which I believe I may be the only exponent in India, pieces of paper alone are used as medium," he says.
Ray says he had always been an avid sketcher since his college days. Wherever he went - subways of Tokyo,bus stations of Rudraprayag, pier of Locarno in Switzerland - a book of sketches accompanied him.