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EVENTS

There were people … everywhere. Some taking photographs, others clutching canvases wrapped in newspaper, artists taking orders or giving out visiting cards…

Photos: Sreekanth Chintam, Drishti School of Photography

Art and the everyday: Some of the paintings on display.

Forget the artists on the sidewalks of Paris. On the last Sunday of the year, the upscale Kumarakrupa Road outside the Chitrakala Parishat in Bangalore is the place to go to for all art lovers. On this day, for the past five years, the road is closed for vehicles and an unusual activity unfolds from early morning. People assemble here with rolls of paper, piles of canvas, decorated masks, pots, mounted paintings and more paintings. They display their creations on tables, on the pavements, exhibit them on the walls and stash work under the table to be brought out later. This is the Chitra Santhe, the art market, the brain child of the prestigious Chitrakala Parishat to bring the artist and the buyer face to face. The professional artists, students, housewives, art and craft teachers are mostly from Karnataka but the number of artists from other States is steadily increasing every year. After all, this is a unique opportunity for them to exhibit their talent without paying any fees and, what is more, they get to sell directly to the buyer and pocket the entire amount!

The fifth Chitra Santhe on December 30, 2007 had some 1,300 artist stalls stretched along the main road and into the side alleys as well. It was not only the organisers or the artists who were enthusiastic about the event but also the visitors. In fact, even before some of them had set up their displays, the first of the art lovers had arrived, hoping perhaps to pick up a good bargain. By mid-morning, as the event was being formally inaugurated within the premises of the Chitrakala Parishat, the road outside resembled a mela. There were people here, there and everywhere. Some taking photographs, others clutching canvases wrapped in newspaper, artists taking orders or giving out visiting cards, mehendi and portrait artists at work and hordes of policemen keeping a watchful look on all while occasionally taking a break to admire the paintings themselves. Adding to the general gaiety of the place were vendors briskly selling ice cream, hot roasted groundnuts or pink candyfloss, dancers and drummers providing photo ops for the battery of cameras.

The paintings showed a vast range of styles. From the standard art school designs of Rajasthani beauties, calendar art, Ravi Varma copies, sceneries, Victorian scenes, landscape, forests with light filtering through the leaves, animals and birds to the more flamboyant splash of colours, self-portraits, abstracts and likenesses of Girish Karnad, Rani Mukherjee with eloquent eyes and of course, the youth icon, our former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. There were miniatures, Tanjore paintings, Warli figures, the Mysore version of Ganjeefa on parchment paper, Madhubani paintings, embellished mud pots, tiny figures on pressed leaves and carvings on soapstone. Even the common glass bulbs were metamorphosed into colourful knickknacks and bottles wound with coloured coir strings were decorated with little mirrors. The versatile M.S. Prashanth of Mysore had exhibited Madhubani, realistic birds, busts with a shining steel finish, dancing Zulu figures in black and white and Picasso style paintings, all in one stall. P.V. Bhaskar from Kerala found inspiration in women at work and play and had captured them in meticulous detail. Uma had drawn the traditional kolam on glass using white lead. They were a sell out the previous year and she had come with a bigger stock this year.

If sand was the medium for Raju from Chennai to depict temples, gods and goddesses, Hetal Foflia from Gujarat went to her roots, to the Bhunga, the traditional mud houses of Kachch inlaid with little mirrors. The circular Bhunga houses use babool wood and grass for the structure and earth or cow dung for the plastering and flooring. Hetal had used a mix of clay and paper pulp on hardboard to create embossed figures with striking effect. She was busy taking orders for her Ganeshas and explaining the process of her art to the crowd that had gathered round her.

The affable Ganesha was everywhere, in different sizes, colours and materials. One artist specialised in Ganesha on canvas and had named his stall “Ganeshas Galore”. The rotund God was present even in glass bottles. These were the creations of Shreenath Shejwadkar who runs a medical shop in Davangere and makes wax sculptures in his spare time. He pours melted wax into the bottle and once it cools, he uses a long metal stick to carve the figure within.

From the Elephant God to the elephant is a small step but Thomas Kallarackal’s pièce de résistance was anything but small. Kallarackal, who specialises in nature paintings, had exhibited a mammoth close up of a charging African elephant stirring fine dust on the ground with its feet. He took one year to paint his gigantic masterpiece and had priced it at Rs. 5 lakh.

If there was raw power in Kallarackal’s tusker, then the photographs of the Drishti School, Bangalore were equally remarkable for sophistication, subtlety and composition. Lazily spiralling smoke from incense sticks, half a guitar, streaks of lights, a drop of water about to fall from the back of a spoon were some of their exhibits.

Soon after the Santhe began, the wife of one of the artists told this writer, “Many people say they like this painting and that painting but they don’t buy any.”

By evening, however, she had a satisfied smile on her face with almost all her husband’s paintings marked as sold. He and his fellow artists will now work and wait for one whole year for the next Chitra Santhe.

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