Jain Kamal makes art with font

Graphic designer Jain Kamal has come up with a unique exhibition of 24 paintings which depict different stories about the meaning of life and its process. The paintings are highly inspired by Jainism and make use only of fonts, specially created by Kamal, for the expression of ideas.     Many people might think that fonts are simple mediums used only in the word documents in the computers. But for Kamal they are as unique as human beings. “Each newspaper has its own blood group in the form of fonts. If it was not so all the newspapers would look the same. And thus fonts give a face to the newspapers which are very different from each other,” he says.     In his 24 paintings he has made an attempt to put the essence of Jainism together. He has chosen the revered mantra ‘the Namokar Mantra’ for his expression of ideas. Each painting is made up of many fonts implying a different meaning. “I chose this theme for my paintings for a reason. The azaan (call for prayer) praises Allah, the Hanuman Chalisa, Guru Granth Sahib and the Sikh gurus. The Namokar mantra praises the wise and the great,” he says.      One of the paintings titled Birth of Life, shows an intricate combination of 84 triangles put together. “According to a philosophy of Jainism, a human being has to take a total of 84 lakh births before being born as a human. He starts lowest level as bacteria or an ant and moves up gradually. With the 84 triangles in the painting I hve just tried to explain the point that human life is precious and we should value it,” says Kamal.      In another painting titled, Eco of life - 2, he depicts the philosophy of helping each other in need. “The painting says that we should light a candle in the neighbour’s house as well after lighting it in our own house. This will help the world immensely in achieving world peace,” he says.