The language of stone – The Hindu

Parmod Mann with one of his sculptures.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

It takes courage, devotion, and an instinctive understanding of the human condition to carve vulnerability into black marble or paint evocative symbolism onto canvas. Parmod Mann does it with grace and his artworks haunt and heal at the same time.

Inside Triveni Kala Sangam, where Mann’s sculptures of three decades are on display, his works go beyond the visual appeal. The pieces unfold like a memory, like an ache that one has felt but never been able to name. His art is arresting as it allows the viewer to submerge in a beautiful world of marbles that breathe. Through, free-flowing strokes that feel at once spontaneous and deeply meditative, Mann chisels the gleaming black marble to craft tender, raw and enigmatic femininity.

A sculpture by Parmod Mann.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Female to the fore

The exhibition, titled Contours of the Soul, showcases not just form, but the agony of stone being chiselled to life. Most of his works revolve around the female form. Mann says, every contour, bend, and curve reveals to him a new layer of soulful resilience, longing, tenderness, silent agony and a rage unfolding. His intuition leads him to making such masterful pieces.

“It all comes directly from the heart,” he says. His vivid imagination blends with instinct, giving rise to forms that are uniquely raw, unfiltered, and deeply felt. The symmetry, the finesse, and even the perfect ruggedness stand out.

These are not just sculptures; they feel like expressions — silently revolting with an unsettling calm. The expressions in the sculptures have an emotional resonance and shift with lighting and perspective.

A sculpture by Parmod Mann.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Interestingly, there are no titles and descriptions accompanying his works. And that is the point Mann tries to make. “I do not want to bind the viewer with my interpretations,” he says. “The viewer should be free to feel, find, and understand what a piece of art is conveying. The choice to do so makes art personal and liberating,” he adds.

The exhibition by Art Pilgrim features 30 of Mann’s sculptures from 1989.

At the Sculpture Garden, Triveni Kala Sangam, 205 Tansen Marg; April 11 to 30; 11am to 7pm