12th to 18th November 2025 “Echoes of Silence” An Exhibition of Photographs

Dev Inder tries to comprehend the world of relationships through his photography work Therefore the threedimensional space he steps into becomes a suggestion and a cue for him creating ldquoa relationship between two figures that had not existed beforerdquo John Szarkowski in The Photographerrsquos EyeEndowed with an acute sense of seeing everything in the landscape comes forward to help unlock the doors of perception Things like fallen branches the everydayness of a billboard reeds bending lightly to the breeze earth as the seed of grass clouds as emanations of the trees and autumnal cyphers of grass are the anagrams he tries to read through the portal of 35 mm This diversity enhances his range of expression with images happening at the focal plane of his artistic consciousnessNothing DiesThe ephemeral and the eternal coexisting as juxtaposed poles guide the compassionate lens of Dev Inder Whatever he touches comes aliveldquoLandscapes are culture before they are nature constructs of the imagination projected onto wood water and rockrdquo Simon Schama Landscape and MemoryAnd so imbued with presences actual or of the imagination Dev Inderrsquos pictures are the sites where he goes looking for resolutionThe Photographerrsquos PresenceThe photographer till the moment of shutter release is a condensed presence all faculties summoned just to see The very next moment everything evaporates the scene the self the eye The photographer folds his tripod and walks back Behind his back the scene disintegrates into a lot of rock trees water and lightWhat of nature shall we capture in a moment so profound Dev Inder recounts visiting the same place to have a better shot but concludes ldquoItrsquos not worth it The moment was only thenrdquoInviting Life into LandscapesAware of the paradox Dev Inder invites life into the landscape with all its presences real or metaphoric arranging them in rhythmic correspondence The sky and the clouds in the pictures lend weight to the frames at once embracing and inhabiting the scene The elements have terra firma to stand on and solid space to grow into Restrained tonal range subsumes hierarchies in participatory fervorMinimalism and RelationshipsHe is also a minimalist in the sense that he transforms landscapes into relationships with minimal appurtenanceIn one photograph through deft composition he has tried to bind the entire valley in visual embrace with warped arms as tendrils curling around the visibilities in the frame It is a photograph about union the tree supplanting Dev Inder to enter into an embraceDwelling on the same strand letrsquos look at the picture of the More plains from Ladakh By now most of us are familiar with the sweeping vistas of Morersquos plains and to most a wideangle shot of its immense physicality is enough to fill the frame of imagination But Dev Inderrsquos picture shows a vehicle emerging from the far end of the convergence Far from being a sedate perspective shot it seems to suggest life emerging out of landrsquos end throbbing with presenceThe Contemplative SpiritThe contemplative spirit of his work is also visible in another photograph a small plant with broad leaves cradled by a rock with a shoot circling over to the top of the rockTherersquos a risk of it being viewed as a binary of the animate and inanimate But the rounded edges of the rock and the encircling branch the third element in the picture make it into a picture of ecology The rock is not passive Giving off itself rounding off angularities it supports and germinates life The rock is not a theatre where life is enacted it is part of life itself The picture stops us from ponderingSpatial Ambiguity and AbstractionDev Inder also converses through spatial ambiguity and abstraction Pliant space gets modulated into anagrams of intrigue and discoveryAbstraction is a reality whose meaning is yet to arrive but this doesnrsquot make all randomness abstract Unless the artist stands at the cusp of intelligibility of the patterns heshe ciphers the end product would be stillbornAware of this his semantic lexicon employs symbols with cultural affinity for example concentric rings at the heart of a rock evoke the memory of a tree towering rocks come alive with human forms in another pictureBy reflecting the near in the far Dev Inder is able to locate rhythm in the seemingly vast randomness of the landscape At times acute compression of perspective melds the landscape into architectureAfter all ldquoit is our shaping perception that makes the difference between raw material and landscaperdquo Simon Schama Landscape and MemoryUse of Negative SpaceOn rare occasions when he uses negative space he does so with finesse and purposeIn the picture where a man rests under the shadow of a rock that rests tenuously on a bigger rock the chunk of negative space on the left if not attended to properly would make the composition precarious However an aware photographer waits for the arrival of a human form to step into that space solidly anchoring the rockVisually addressing the precarity of the rock tremendously enhances the restfulness of the sceneVenue DetailsVenueJehangir Art GalleryTerrace Gallery161B MG RoadKala Ghoda Mumbai 400001Timing 11 AM to 7 PMContact 91 9872401204Creating Consciousness of RelationshipsIn creating a consciousness of relationships intimacy and intrigue Dev Inder invites the landscape to partner with him Dead stumps rise up in vertical verseLifeless branches of trees lying on the ground breathless and bleached become animated limbs by the delicate handling of the form and tones Landscapes of grit start teeming with life and redemptionAs Walter Pater has famously saidldquoAll art constantly aspires towards the condition of musicrdquoWe hear notes of music rise in Dev Inderrsquos ldquoThe Echoes of SilencerdquoNirlep SinghMohali

12th to 18th November 2025 “Echoes of Silence” An Exhibition of Photographs

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12th to 18th November 2025 “Echoes of Silence” An Exhibition of Photographs

Other Articles

Mid-Day Fast