Young at Art

Works range from the professional to the amateur at the festival (Express Photo by Amit Mehra)

A few hours before the official inauguration of the India Art Festival in Delhi, Shivani Bharadwaj is busy with a group curious schoolchildren, explaining how her blind students have created artworks that feature at her booth, Inside Me, at the festival. On display are frames with contours of a bird, a flower with a human face, balloons in the air and random circles. Below every work, Bharadwaj has notes on each artist. “You can’t give them vision but you can support it so that they can visualise things,” she says.

She occupies one of 124 booths at the festival, at Thyagaraj Stadium till November 26. Catering to the mid-segment buyers, the festival, in its third year, brings together artists from across India — from Mumbai to Dharamshala, Baroda, Bengaluru and Kolkata. “The platform helps independent artists meet young buyers,” says Jaipur-based Rajrani Sisodia. This is the second year the 66-year-old artist is participating in the festival in Delhi. She is showcasing needle paintings that are hand embroidered with patterns, from birds and flowers to the tale of Samudra manthan. Close to her booth is a first timer at the festival, Mumbai-based Neelima Gupta. She has a line of ceramics and hopes to network with Delhi galleries and clientele. The price starts at Rs 2,000.

“Our aim is to cater to buyers who are looking to buy art that they like at prices that are not sky-high. Also, this is an opportunity for artists to showcase their skills. We do have masters such as SH Raza and MF Husain but the number is less compared to the more mid-segment art. Even the booth charges start from Rs 12,000 per sqm, which is reasonable compared to other such events,” says Rajendra, founder and managing director of the two-city festival that began in Mumbai in 2011.

Veteran artist Yusuf Arakkal’s wife Sara is paying a tribute to the artist, who passed away in 2016. She has his works from the Christ series and still life, as well as works of young artists that her gallery represents, such as Sharad Bharadwaj and Sara Hussain. “Not many young artists from the South are showcased in the North and I felt this is the right place for that,” says Sara. The WBC Gallery booth has works of 11 young artists — from Srushti Rao and Anuja Sane to Mahesh Karambele. In other booths, if 18-year-old Vedika Modi’s works deal with volunteering and the effects of excessive medication among mental health patients, Agantuk Art Tune from Kolkata has panels where artists have painted on postcards, apart from the sketches of art giants Ramkinkar Baij and Somnath Hore.

Mumbai-based KS Hotkar has people peering through magnifying glasses at his miniatures painted on pebbles as small as 5 mm. “I use brushes that have two-three hairs, and my thumbnail as a palette to mix colours,” he says. As he helps visitors with magnifying glasses, Hotkar hopes that he will also find buyers for his experimental works.