Mumbai :

Even as the recent controversial statement of the RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat on Mother Teresa has received strong opinionated responses and also started an online war between opposing views on the issue, a Mumbai based artist has gently put forth his impression with charcoal and acrylic on canvas.

Artist Ajay De is currently holding an exhibition titled `Butterfly People’ at Jehangir Art Gallery where he has shown among other artworks two paintings in which Mother Teresa is a butterfly.

“I have correlated beautiful people as butterflies through art. In fact, I feel that everyone can be a butterfly, a creature that lives for just a few days but spreads beauty and happiness all around it,” explained De, whose exhibition is on till Monday (March 2).

When asked what he thinks of the latest controversy on whether Mother Teresa used to convert the people she rescued from the streets, De said: “I do not want to get into this political controversy, though I will say that it has not affected the reputation of Mother Teresa.”

The artist who had met Mother Teresa just once in the early ’80s in Kolkata, elaborated: “When a stone is thrown at a celebrity, his or her image is not tarnished, but someone else may get some publicity.”

His two artworks on Mother Teresa have already been sold, while the other paintings have also got a favorable response at the exhibition.

“From the time it breaks out of the chrysalis and transforms into a beautiful winged creature, the butterfly stuns the world with its beauty and soothes the world its spirit. In life, we humans come close to being the butterfly, yet only a few are able to embrace the life of a butterfly. That is the challenge we all have to think about,” he concluded.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Mumbai / by Vijay Singh, TNN / March 01st, 2015