An Gupta relies on his innate knowledge of software, an uncanny sense for colour and a grounding in fractal geometry to create his works of art. Surekha Kadapa Bose finds out more.

Ankur Gupta has never been to an art school. He doesn't remember ever dirtying his hands with paits in his 46 odd years. But his sense of colour knowledge of geometry and familiarity with computers has made him an artists. A digital artist to be precise.

And surprise of all surprises, Gupta, a Pharma Graduate from BITS, Pilani and and a MBA from IIMAhmedabad has been invited to display his works at Renaissance 2001, an exhibition of digital art curated by Shonan Fujisawa campus, Kaio University, Japan to be held on October 23 and 24.

Thought an art form still to be recognised in India, digital art is an emerging area of interest in art circles in the west. In fact in the USA art galleries refular arrange exhibitions of digital art or computer art scholars, critics and connoisseurs here are yet torecognise this new art form. "No one is willing to stick his neck out and claim this to be art," says Gupta, a health industry consultant seated in his small but cosy office at Borivali, while he clicks images of his prints on his favourite Mac. "Only because we don't paint on the canvas and use the mouse?"

Contrary to popular perceptions digital art, the kind of art which Gupta specialises needs the knowledge of specialised computer software, uncanny feeling for colour, doses of imagination and a grouding in fractal geometry. For those uninitiated fractals are graphic representations of some of the principles of the science of chaos. Most fractals are based on one mathematical equation. Different regions of each fractal are simply different coordinates on a mathematical plane which has one rational axis and complex axis. The number of times the equation is computed is converted into a color value. The result is a fractal image. One fractal image can require upto 8.4 billion complex camputations.

A fractal artist, Gupta's tools are the computer and its hardware, the software and the formulas. His inspiration?

I select a basic formula, and generate an intial, global overview drawing, with default parameters. Each image has taken anywhere from two minutes to 20 hours of computer time to evolve, says Gupta, who launched his multimediatitles namely Indian Pharmacopoeia (1998) and quadrilingual Pied Pier of Hamelin (1999).

Gupta works on Adobe Photoshop and fractal software to create the images, which are later transfered on canvasses imbued with ultraviolet coating and melamine finishing making the prints long lasting and fresh looking even after years. Each print has a mind boggling resoultion of 1440 dpi!

So far he has made a profile of 125 digital prints and has sold canvasses to Reckon Diagnostics, Sarabahi, Club Aquaria and others. Incidentally, Gupta's prints do not come cheap. For instance, a 1sq ft. By 2 sq. Ft. Print would cost around Rs. 2,500!

Gupta hosts a wabsite dedicated to popularising Indian art (www.artindia.com) and has invited artists to display their works to world-wide audience. "Anyone can put up six images for Rs. 1,000 which in cludes scanning and hosting costs." Informs 46-years-old Gupta.

In fact, Kaio University came to know of Gupta's digital paintings through his website and invited him to participate in the first digital exhibition of its kind being held in Asia. The digital images will be put together at the Unnerved by the rejection from art circles, Gupta is prepating for a week-long exhibition of his 50 selected digital paintings at Nehru Centre Gallery beginning December 14.

Has the emotionally evocative and inspirationally beautiful works received any recognition from the artists community?

"I have seen the specimens of your work on paer and canvas says a personal communication Prof. M. B. Ingle, Dean, J J School of Art. 'Technically, the works are nicely produced and I feel we should appreciate these works in terms of colour scheme detail and presentation."