The Hindu : New Delhi News : A new glimmer of hope for budding artistic talent

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 28, 2006
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New Delhi

New Delhi

A new glimmer of hope for budding artistic talent

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

VISUAL DELIGHT: An entry for `Art Envelope - 2005' by G. Raman.

NEW DELHI: A group of four artists came together in 2002 to form "Relicmongers'', a web-based platform to showcase their work and interact with like-minded artists across the country.

The initial idea of the group was to document the works of talented, upcoming and relatively unknown artists from across the country.

Says artist and Relicmonger Rahul Chaudhry: "The website www.relicmongers.com was initially formed to initiate a dialogue among the artists, providing a platform where they can show their works and express their view independently, and get documented without being charged for the same. For the past several years, many artists from India and abroad have given consent to display their artwork on the website, but we thought that this wasn't enough and that is how our first competition-based project `Art Envelope -- 2005' came about. More than 100 artists participated in the competition and its success has this year enabled us to bring for the artists the project `Photo Art -- 2006'.''

The participating artists this year will have to work on passport size photographs.

The idea is to use the passport size photograph as the base on which the artist creates his piece.

"Entries for the competition are open till December 31 and artists sending in their work should attach their resume. More details about the competition have been put up on the website. We are hopeful that this project too like the earlier one will get good response from upcoming artists. The aim of the project is to capture the artist's small but brilliant ideas that may vanish if not shared. It is about finding more opportunities for the art community, specially the young artists, most of whom vanish in the darkness of e-commerce and gallery business,'' says Rahul.

"The idea is a small effort for the betterment of those in the art world. Our project `Art Envelope -- 2005' was the first such of its kind started by any art group run by artists. The entries of the artists who participated in the `Art Envelope -- 2005' competition have been documented in a black and white book format and distributed throughout art hubs, libraries and art institutions around the globe. Those wanting to participate in our current competition `Photo Art -- 2006' need no qualifications except love and talent for art. Anyone who has a creative bent of mind and can express himself in the given format is invited,'' he adds.

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