ananta.

Hey, I’m ananta.

Born in Manhattan. I grew between South Jamaica, Queens and an ashram in Brooklyn, while attending a predominantly Jewish primary school in Flushing.

Streets. Synagogues. Sanskrit. Subway.

With all the seeming contradiction, I found curriculum.

From an early age, Vedic philosophy became a compass.
Not just some belief system adopted from the outside, but a way of seeing that felt conclusive and revealing.
At Art and Design High School in New York City, inner ideals found their way into form.
Pencils, paint, lenses, and words. The disciplines were always different but the source was always the same. A search for truth.

I am now a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and kirtaniya. But more than any title, I want to bridge the spiritual (not necessarily religious) and the material.

*Here is the part of the letter where I pretentiously refer to myself in the 3rd person…

ananta.'s work is not made to be observed from a distance. It is made to be felt.
Asking to open up to something deeply in and about yourself.
To convince you that your life is an ongoing masterpiece.
Welcome to the Museum of me.

x . .

ANANTA… & ananta.

Ananta is a Sanskrit word. A Name of God actually. It means unlimited. According to Vedic scripture, God first expands as Ananta and subsequently, unlimitedly serves the purposes of God’s pastimes, needs and endeavors. There are so many amazing accounts of how this takes place.
All of which lead me to the honest conclusion, that I am QUITE limited and am not at all capable of even approaching that capital A Ananta. Not even in aspiration. But what a beautiful ambition. Kudos to mom and dad for thinking so highly of what I was supposed to do with this life.
When I was younger, I would often have the opportunity to defend and loudly declare this name, as it would be constantly mispronounced and made fun of in my various circles of association. Regretfully, I did NOT. Rather, I allowed so many people to call me a myriad of other monikers.
Maybe this is a story for another time. What is important now is ‘ananta.’
Lowercase a. tightly packaged with a period.
An homage to The “A”nanta.
This ananta. is limited. is a current iteration and result of some sort of karmic process right now. This soul will move on to another body and I will be something else one day. That’s what the period means.
As for now, at this time, I am in this ‘ananta.’ situation.
Serendipitously named for that expansion of God I aspire to serve. (that is where the little “a” comes from)

It is said that Ananta is the devotee incarnation of Godhead. He knows nothing but service to God.
I realize I gotta dial that down cuz WHEEEEW AM I LIMITED and defective…. etc. But when we can… :)

Sometimes I also identify in artworks and other references as “a.”

aksaranam a-karo 'smi
Of letters I am the letter A.
— Bhagavad Gita

Well there it is again, I used to sign everything “A”. I would wear the initial on hats and jackets. It is such a common practice that I never thought anything of it.
But there are sciences that support ideas of correlation between these letters and our personalities, capabilities, traits and virtues.
I remembered this verse from Gita some years back and thought ‘God is pretty dope.’ The eloquent expression and art with which everything is broken down in the Bhagavad Gita made me feel that if I could serve that, even a little, I might be something.

So, maybe if we are part and parcel of the Supreme, a teeny finite a. is more appropriate.

UNE FEMME (photographic series)

une femme is a practice of seeing.

The women in these photographs are not performing for the lens. They are simply present. In their beauty.

In complexity.

In the quiet authority of their own existence.

Rooted in a Vedic understanding of the divine feminine, une femme asks a simple question. What does it mean to truly see a woman? Not as the world has decided she should look, but as she actually is. In the unguarded moment. In the full inhabitation of her own life.

These photographs are love letters to presence. To the light that arrives exactly once. To the women who trusted the silence between artist and subject long enough to let something real emerge.