Sri Chinmoy began painting on November 19th, 1974. He was staying in a hotel room in Ottawa, Canada when he felt inspired from within to purchase some paper and crayons. His first picture was a simple rose but, from these humble beginnings, Sri Chinmoy immersed himself in his new found project completing many hundreds of new paintings. His style of painting is very spontaneous and unique. Using a variety of sponges, brushes and even his own hand, he creates bold sweeping strokes of multifarious colours. He paints at a rapid yet unhurried pace. When painting Sri Chinmoy says he enters a meditative consciousness. He does not use his mind or think about what to paint. Instead he follows the spontaneous creativity his meditation gives him easy access to.
By October 3rd, 1975, Sri Chinmoy had completed his first 100,00 paintings, and on November 16th , 1975 he painted a remarkable 16,031 paintings in one 24 hour period. This seems an almost unimaginable achievement but to watch Sri Chinmoy paint enables an insight into his remarkable creative capacity.
The art of Sri Chinmoy has been displayed in many prestigious galleries across the world including The Carrousel du Louvre, The Mall Gallery London, The National Gallery in Ottawa and the Australian Parliament House in Canberra. A gallery of Jharna Kala paintings creates a powerful effect as the variety and light of the paintings creates both a joyful and peaceful effect. Each painting has its own uniqueness and has a capacity to absorb the viewer in the painting.
In addition to the Jharna Kala drawings Sri Chinmoy has also evolved a very unique style of drawing of “Soul Bird” drawings. These soul bird drawings are simple sketches of birds, symbolising our own soul bird and desire for freedom. These simple but beautiful birds are created very quickly involving only a few strokes of a pen. Sometimes Sri Chinmoy will draw just one on a page or a certain object. On other occasions he will draw a family of several birds together. Sri Chinmoy gets tremendous satisfaction from drawing these birds, when signing his name he will also often add an individual bird. At the end of 2005 the number of Soul Birds drawn by Sri Chinmoy numbers over 15 million. With regard to his prolific output, some people may say quantity and quality cannot go together but Sri Chinmoy says that there is no reason why quantity cannot be synonymous with quality. As he writes himself.
“I am responsible for the quantity. My Inner Pilot, my most compassionate Lord Supreme, is responsible for the quality!”
Throughout his life, Sri Chinmoy was still creating many new paintings. Although based on a similar theme his paintings imperceptibly evolved creating new styles and always offering great freshness and newness. For example, on a trip to China he drew many Soul Birds in a classic Chinese style.
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