About Nayanmitra

Nayan grew up in Mumbai, and was always fascinated by numbers and art. Art as a career was not an option, and hence he developed a career in numbers – and became a Chartered Accountant, and moved to USA for a MBA in Finance.  After leaving India, he focussed on developing a career in Banking and Finance, and before he knew, almost three decades had passed since he had picked up colors and paint brushes.

About 2 years ago, walking in London, he passed by an art material store. He went in the store like a kid in a candy store, and bought basic colors and material. He began painting, and before he had completed his first piece, decided to sell his art and donate the money to charities. He was a trustee of Vedic Heritage Inc (VHI), and an ambassador for Nelson Mandela Childrens Fund. (NMCF) The former was set up by his spiritual teacher, Her Holiness GuruMaa Jyotishanand Saraswati running an Ashram in NY and building one in Lonavala. NMCF was setting up one of the handful of hospitals in South Africa focussed on children, started by Nelson Mandela himself. The twin passions of art and selfless seva were combined into one mission. He booked the exhibition hall at the Nehru Center in Mayfair immediately and set up a target of completing 30 works for the exhibition.

Almost 2 years later in December 2015, he has had 5 exhibitions in London, New York and Mumbai and has completed 108 works! His friend, Sabri set up a web site simply called Nayanmitra.com, and also created a FB page with the same name. He gets his works digitised professionally by George of Digitalarte, and also sells limited editions prints of different sizes on various media.

His art is spiritual art, and uses the concepts of Symbolism from all the scriptures, color therapy, numerology and sacred geometry. His objective is to create works which create positive vibrations, and can be used in the practice of Meditation. His work was greatly influenced by the teachings of his spiritual teacher. He considers S H Raza to be his art guru, without being formally initiated by him, after spending almost five hours with him in his studio in Paris on a one to one basis. Dr David Cranswick unleashed his creative energy after just a few private lessons. His family and friends are his biggest supporters, especially Prem Sharma, a venture capitalist in London, and Kamlesh Sampat, a leading attorney in Mumbai, who have begun collecting his works. He is also influenced by Mother Nature.

When I interviewed Nayan, this is what he said about his works:, “I literally start with a blank piece of paper or canvas, and just do my works without any pre-planning, as I am in the zone either chanting Sri Hanuman Chalisa or listening to Pandit Jasraj. The only time I find is on weekend mornings when I am chanting my prayers. I begin slowly, and before I know I am totally lost in the work. Each work is my Meditation, and the inspiration comes from the Universal Energy through the images stored in my sub-conscious mind.”

Nayan has huge plans to not only continue his painting, but also sell limited edition prints to hotels, spas and hospitals to help them create positive vibrations at their locations, besides selling to individuals. Wearable art will follow in a couple of years. The journey has just begun.