Sunday, 4th October brought together lovers of photography to the Roerich Trust – a new photo exhibition by Michael Wright from Australia was inaugurated at the Modern Art Exhibition hall.
Titled “Faces as States of Grace”, the photo exhibition presented photos taken at the famous “Rock Garden” in Chandigarh, Punjab, India. Rock Garden was created by Neck Chand out of – total waste… A visitor to the garden would never forget how the loving eye and hand of its creator turned the things thrown out by the people into the beauty – sculptures, intricate paths, small parks, images of people, animals etc. Michael Wright knows Neck Chand for years, and their friendship resulted in a series of photographs taken at the ‘Rock Garden’, now exhibited at the Roerich Trust.

During the exhibition Michael Wright created fantastic mandalas dedicated to Hindu Gods out of grocery items. Several such beautiful mandalas were as equal attraction for the visitors as his photographs.

What Michael Wright writes about himself:

“I was born in country NSW, Australia on 14th September, 1949 and educated at a Christian college. By the end of my early teens, the travel bug had well and truly bitten. Europe and North Africa were my first choices. A year was spent here, during which the love of photography developed. Over the following 10 years, I tried a variety of businesses - building renovation, real-estate sales, owning a restaurant, women’s fashion, furniture manufacturing, to name just a few. All these ventures led nowhere for me.

In 1982, I started to study natural healing. I first studied herbalism, Japanese Zen massage, yoga, colour healing and spiritual healing. Then, in late 1983, at one of these courses at Nature Care College, Sydney I studied a course on Psychobiology, with the lecturer Dr Philip Groves. My real life path had opened up. The following year, he invited me to attend his private group meetings, which I did with love and zeal for the following 14 years till his death in 1999. Dr Grove’s teachings covered some of the greatest mystics including Swedenborg, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Lama Govinda, Bennett, Pak Suba and Jung.

During these years of teachings, we covered a huge range of subjects including Egyptology, Botany, Science, Marine Biology, Astronomy, most of the ancient civilizations, Esoteric Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, The Tao, Sacred Architecture, Objective Art and various modes of natural healing. He was a true esoteric school. During my time with Dr. Groves, he suggested that I look at art to express ideas, feelings and visions that were flowing through me at the time.

After several years at The National Art School in Sydney, I became an artist … or so I thought at the time. Since graduating in 1992, somehow the title of artist has remained, but I do see myself as an Outsider Artist i.e. the formal side of my art became a little rough around the edges.

Over the last 20 years, I have had both small and large exhibitions via the processes of totems, photography, installations of various kinds and printmaking (my major). All had a spiritual theme or essence running through them. All were generally in series of 7 or 9 and all had a guest speaker giving a discourse on the exhibition theme.

Over the last 20 years, my love of travel has taken me to Indonesia, Sikkim, Thailand, Nepal, most of the North West corner of India, Turkey, Japan, Morocco and Europe.

Photography is my paintbrush at present. The regions that I currently most feel at home in are the Buddhist Himalayas. Though I am not a follower of Buddhism and personally know some very fine Buddhist lamas, the path I have chosen is Esoteric Christianity, in which all the true great spiritual paths meet. All are of great help in our goal for the ancient ambrosia of Truth and Transformation.

My inspirations and visions well up from the depths of my subconscious ... my true self. These spiritual gifts I feel need to be expressed in a variety of artistic ways such as sculpture, printmaking, poetry, journal writing, photography and installations. As each of these small exhibitions manifest and unfold little by little, I learn humbly and gracefully with love and wisdom, a little more of the spiritual nature of the self.”

Michael J Wright, 2011