Ashish Dubey: Physicist Photographer Obsessed with An Indian Lake
Part of an Artist Stories Series that amplifies diverse voices of visual artists we’ve had open conversations with.
Meeting Ashish Dubey was like meeting that super cool philosopher friend who is both a Physics professor and an incredible fine art photographer. Okay, maybe I don’t really have a friend like that. Which goes to show that Ashish really is a one-of-a-kind visual artist.
As a nature photographer, Ashish has been going to one particular lake in Madhya Pradesh, India, for the past few years. When he is not busy conducting physics research or teaching at the university, of course. But no matter if it’s dawn or dusk, rainy or sunny, cold or warm, the artist would venture to the same beautiful wetland whenever he could. When the light briefly hits just the right spot on the water, Ashish captures the most alluring geometrical shapes and symmetries with his sharp eye for detail.
Ashish considers the art of photography like oil painting, with his camera as the painter’s brush and the light as the paint. In his photography, being loyal to realism doesn’t make the art any less metaphorical. On the contrary, Ashish’s snippets of reality convey just as much elusiveness and abstraction as Postmodern paintings. His take on photography is refreshingly unique — who would have thought that realism can simultaneously also express abstraction?
There is no doubt that Ashish’s physics background bleeds into his artistic visions as he specializes in Non-Linear Optics. But his passions for physics and art are both bound by one common inspiration: the metaphysical, or the quest in understanding our existence in life. Ashish tells me that one important drive behind his art is to connect with the ‘sublime’ in life, something beyond what we conceive as ‘real’. His photography expresses the philosophical and poetic thoughts he cannot feature in an academic research paper. Art helps him to connect with those intangible elements of reality just as much as physics does. In Ashish’s own words: “I look at photography to connect with the Supreme. As I believe that all art forms are an opportunity to engage with the unknown.”
Getting to know Ashish’s thoughts and artistic processes behind the art was like stepping into the artist’s own mind while re-encountering his art in a new light (pun-intended). Lines, colours and shadows on his photographs come alive as vehicles of the human mind, rather than just static entities on a computer screen. Although I won’t be able to see his art in real life anytime soon, Ashish invited me to visit his studio in India sometime in the future. But in the meantime, he is happily welcoming anyone for a ‘virtual’ studio visit to catch glimpses behind the scenes of his optic enchantment.
Check out Ashish Dubey’s website here
