Art for all

A haven for art lovers, artists and students alike, Ujaaagar art exhibition is pushing boundaries and shining a spotlight on upcoming talents. The brainchild of 16-year-old Dheer Jain, the exhibition’s main motive is to bring talent to the forefront. “Ujaagar’s mission is to discover upcoming artists and provide them with a platform where they can sell their artwork and promote it,” says Dheer.

Organised in collaboration with art school Artiste360, this exhibition also promotes learning with a variety of workshops and talks hosted by the best in business.  Talking about the variety of artists who are exhibiting their work, Dinesh Dutta, co-founder of Artiste360 and Dheer’s mentor says, “We have a lot of contemporary artists, traditional artists participating. There is digital art, and also photography. We’re not looking at any particular theme and it’s very open-ended. We have selected works, which are very unique, and original.  We have folk art such as contemporary Warli painting, installations and sculptures as well.”

Dinesh points out one such unique video installation by Pratik Jadhav and says, “The video installation is a small experiment by him. It’s a small room made out of transparent plastic sheets so the audience can see inside and there are two characters that represent the relationship. Because they don’t talk, things are explained by action. You can see they are fighting and then throwing mud at each other. It’s an experiment; Prateek has just finished his masters from JJ.”

The weeklong event is packed with talks and workshops curated to help artists and students explore their potential and learn from the best. Day four brings a demo by renowned artist Abhijeet Patole who is known for his expressive artworks. “Patole is a master in painting and his portraits are very expressive. It’s about his feeling towards the subject, using colour and a lot of spontaneity,” says Dinesh.  

Another interesting event is a talk called Portraiture Architecture by Pratap Morey, who uses a combination of digital photographic images, architecture drawings and engraving to create intricate paper works. And according to Tarang Jain, co-founder of Artiste360, “The person who’s conducting the talk is the only one in India doing this type of art and he is very unique. His style of working, with architecture how he moves to visual art, will be a very interesting talk.”

Another important part of the exhibition is a talk on career in art by Red Pen and according to Tarang, this is the missing link between art students and successful art careers. She says, “For children who are in art collages, they need councilors outside the school to guide them about where to go for further education. Councilors are the missing link that parents need outside the school for the guidance of the child’s career. They’re going to talk about not only visual arts but also liberal arts, which are becoming more popular than other courses in today’s time. The options are increasing and the scope to earn money is much more than people actually realise, so this talk will showcase what is out there.”

The exhibition is ongoing till October 21 at Artists' centre, Kala Ghoda