Commentary by Ron C. Moss, Haiga Editor
Haiga Showcase: Amrutha Prabhu
Amrutha has achieved a varied palette of colour and movement with her haiga. Her personal and deeply felt senryu and haiku connect well with the painted and digital images.
In “leaf of,” the leaves draw me immediately with their different stages of colour, texture, and decay. The senryu brings ua pause for thought and perhaps a message that we need to see and hear.
The mirror image of the haiku in the “(s)he die(t)s” haiga highlights the amazing painting in a very unusual way. The whole composition creates a refreshing, distinctive look, and each time I view the haiga I find more to appreciate.
In this “pearl shell,” the shell has taken the form of flowers and perhaps a blossoming into a new way of life. The colours are strong and vibrant, and once again the choice of font and placement of the text adds to and completes the haiga.
With “sense of i” we see subtle tones in muted colours that merge well with the words. The colour of the text and hand-written style of the font blend well with the sandy colours, creating a pleasing mood and feel.
Amrutha explains in her own words:
leaf of : Trees are families with leaf members. Leaves adapting to changing environments have their life stories, and each story is a message to the world.
(s)he die(t)s: Look at the picture from one angle and it looks like a lady with wings or a butterfly with human body; turn around and look at it from another angle and it looks like a wild flower. The haiku associated with it also has different perspectives to it. Beauty. as they say, always lies in the eye of the beholder.
pearl shell : OPENING UP to something precious is always a challenging yet beautiful journey, be it the process of pearl formation or becoming a vegetarian.
sense of i: Pearl is found in the depth of the oceans and is very precious; so is the sense of “I” within us.
About the Artist
Amrutha Prabhu is a nature lover, a cooking enthusiast, a computer engineer by degree, and an artist at heart. “Of all the roles that I play, I feel that being a learner is most enjoyable; being a mother, most challenging; and being a woman, most vulnerable.” She discovered her love for poems and art—especially haiku, haiga, and related Japanese forms—in her mid-thirties. “I am the kind of person who makes little happy notes of moments that make life worth living,” she says, moments that she expresses through poems, paintings, or food. “I believe at 80, I might be cherishing these little happy notes that made my days.” See more of her work on Instagram, @amruthapaatra.