India Art Festival: Here's what 6 self-taught artists have to share

The India Art Festival (IAF) has acquired a unique space for exhibiting and promoting independent artists and their works. In its sixth edition, the festival is trying to make up for the lost time due to the pandemic-induced interruption by presenting 450 artists, with a combined portfolio of 3,500 artworks spread across 25 galleries and 85 booths. The most striking works on display, however, are by self-taught artists. Half of the people I got in touch with had trained themselves. And over the years, they’ve either started pursuing their ‘hobby’ professionally only recently or converted their interest area into a full-fledged ‘career’. In exclusive conversations with Firstpost, six such artists talked about their art and their process. Edited excerpts. Manoj Kumar Swain, 47, Bengaluru Introducing himself as “not a professional”, this Bengaluru-based software engineer currently working with the Swiss Bank was “always interested in the art”, but started investing his time and energy into painting three years back. His hyperrealism clearly stands out in his art. He usually likes to work on a “black background and black canvas” and always “tries to play with shadow and light effect”, as it gives his paintings a three-dimensional appearance. He enjoys acrylic on canvas but wants to work with oil on canvas, too. Through his work, Manoj aims at highlighting the central emotion of the figures in his paintings: be it ferociousness (Kali), desire (woman), grief (horse), or bliss (Krishna). He invokes a cinematic analogy to share that he wants to exhibit the liveliness in everything, even a “stone statue can come out alive in a painting if you pay attention.” His work is exhibited by Uchaan Foundation, Gurugram.

Manoj Kumar Swain from Bengaluru with his hyper-realistic paintings Neha Dua, 38, Kanpur Neha, who has been painting for the last seven years now, and whose works have been exhibited across India, Dubai, and last year was also presented in the 7th Geoje International Art Festival at the Haegeumgang Theme Museum, Geoje, Republic of Korea, is presenting her work for the third time at IAF. She feels that even if she tries to begin with, say a yellow, it is “always the blues and purples” that she ends up arriving at. “These are meditative moods,” she says about her paintings. “These are the dominant colours when you’ve achieved mastery in meditation,” she continues, before concluding that her paintings depict “her journey. I don’t think while I draw. And I believe that my paintings connect easily with people who understand how meditation works, for it’s not an everyday language that people understand. Also, they make it loud and clear to the viewer: you’re not at the centre.” In her own words, the paintings can be interpreted this way: “The sun and the moon, they guide me, and this mountain is that I’m trying to conquer. And the choice of circular canvas is also deliberate. It’s the core of the philosophy behind this work: Everything ends where it begins.”

Kanpur-based Neha Dua presenting her artwork Nikita Thakur, 34, Mumbai A contemporary abstract artist from Mumbai, Nikita feels that she’s able “to break free from the set processes and exercise absolute freedom” while doing abstract art. According to her, “the mood, the energy, and the feelings” everything seeps into her paintings. She loves layering and mix-matching to capture the essence of the story that she wants to tell. Though she’s a self-taught artist, she recently attended a program that helped her “apply art principles in my work, to make it stronger, powerful, and expressive.” For Nikita “abstract is home”, but she calls herself a versatile artist having worked on different mediums and employing various techniques. Though over the years she has taken inspiration mostly from the greatest of American abstract painters like Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko, most recently she is enamoured by the works of Italian visual artist Alberto Burri. In the ongoing festival, her paintings capture the “undergrowth mass of bushes, fungi, and insects – a whole lot of ecosystem”, as she says, “captures the precise mood and tickles the curiosity of the people”. She says that she applies a “beginner’s mindset” to ensure her work remains “experimental” and doesn’t buy the perception that abstract is for niche audiences, for she believes that abstract has always “made people curious”. “Audiences get drawn to an abstract work more”, she adds. “They ask me if I can tell them what the painting is about, and I love to interact when someone is curious about the work.”

Nikita Thakur, with her abstract paintings, at the IAF, Delhi Sadashiv Sawant, 54, Mumbai Sadashiv – an artist who wasn’t present, literally – is a mechanical engineer by training, who began “following his passion only after 50”. His wife, who was present at the exhibition, informs that her husband loves hyperrealism. She tells me that “he usually draws with pencil”. And that graphite and charcoal on white paper really bring out the texture of his art and craft – he is able to capture the minutest of details. Or as his wife fondly says, “proper depth”. Perhaps “working on architecture presentations for the last 25 years” made him add those details and play with light and shadow in his work. Though monochromatic portraits are his prowess, he does a variety of work, including providing online and offline art courses. As per his wife, “he wants to teach whatever he has acquired over the years and share learnings with others.” This is the first time Sadashiv’s works are being exhibited in Delhi.

In his absence, Sadashiv Sawant’s wife is presenting her husband’s work at the IAF, Delhi Saumya, 32, Delhi Again a first-timer at the exhibition, Saumya does “impressionist landscapes with bold textures and colours”. Her brushwork, she says, “gives movement and structure to my paintings”. Little did I know that if I’d ask her about her inspiration behind the use of striking colours and imagery in her works, she’d tell me that she’s yet another software engineer who considered art as a childhood hobby but has now “switched career” because it “gives me happiness”. Her in-your-face use of strokes not only provides three-dimensionality to her work but also “forces you to imagine”. She says, “I’ve painted sky differently. I want the viewer to imagine this”. Breaking away from the milieu of muted tones, she wants to “attract” people by “capturing the liveliness of nature”. Even though it’s her debut, she tells me that she knew that nature had to be her theme and that she’d experiment with warm and cold tones by using precise colours for bringing about emotions she wanted to illicit.

Saumya with her impressionist landscapes Tejal Jangla, 38, Mumbai Specialising in canvas art, pencil sketching, and portraits, Mumbai-based Tejal, who began pursuing her career as an artist five years back, also delves into home décor and customised works. However, she’s more into realism art. She is also presenting her work for the first time and expresses having a “good experience” at the festival. She has got great “feedback for charcoal and graphite works, and got some enquiries, too”. Like Saumya, the dominant theme in Tejal’s work is also nature. However, she goes to microscopic details in her work. According to her, “these paintings exude calmness. I used dominant colours for these flowers, while I was keen on exploring the black-and-white charm of charcoal for the birds”.

Tejal presenting a range: colourful and graphite-and-charcoal artworks The India Art Festival is on till 10 April 2022 at The Constitution Club of India. Nearest metro station: Patel Chowk (exit gate 3). Saurabh Sharma (He/They) is a Delhi-based queer writer and freelance journalist. Instagram/Twitter: @writerly_life. Read all the **_Latest News_** _, _ **_Trending News_** _, _ **_Cricket News_** _, _ **_Bollywood News_** _, _ **_India News_** and **_Entertainment News_** here. Follow us on Facebook_, _ Twitter and Instagram_._