Lockdown in TN: Artist misses annual visit to his mother in Switzerland, plans to make a journey to her garden through paintings

CHENNAI: A year ago, around the same time, artist

Christian Uhlmann

spent his time inside the beautiful garden maintained by his 93-year-old mother, Rosemary, in

Switzerland

.

A hippie-turned-artist, Uhlmann has been living in Tiruvannamalai after he got influenced by the ideas of Ramana Mahirishi and Advaita. Every year, he would visit his hometown -- Winterthur -- in June and return to India in July, after spending a couple of weeks with his mother, for whom

flowers

are like a symphony.

The mother missed her son due to the

lockdown

this year, but she shared pictures of flowers to her son on a social networking site.

Uhlmann says he will recreate his visit through sketches. "I miss my mother and the beautiful garden she has been maintaining for years. I learnt the basics of flowers from this garden only. And that’s the reason why I visit my hometown every year,” said Uhlmann.

Christian, however, recollects his memories through the photographs that he has taken a year ago when he visited Winterthur.

“I shared some pictures of last year that my mother had sent to me. It’s a great feeling. I can experience the charm of those beautiful flowers sitting here,” he said. “I think the crisis will get over soon and I will be able to visit her next year,” he added.

Rosemary in Winterthur in her garden

As an artist, Christian first started making palm leaf sculptures and paintings in Tiruvannamalai. He soon developed a strong relationship with palmyra, the tree of the state and a symbol of Tamil culture. Even though palmyra trees are widely abandoned today, Uhlmann is trying to reinvent the status of the tree in the cultural space of people through his art.

He married Rani, a Tamil woman, and settled in Tiruvannamalai. Uhlmann’s works have been exhibited in his hometown in Switzerland, but the 69-year-old hippie still finds the meaning of life through nature using the leaves of palmyra as a tool.