14th Annual Art Carnival: Getting the youth to take to the canvas
About 600 artworks by 200 students are being showcased at the 14th Annual Art Carnival. The exhibition aims to take the young generation back to the roots and preserve the old, classical traditions and culture of art.
Holding painting brushes and palettes in their hands, these young artists have been busy giving life to their fancies since past one year. And now they have displayed everything from abstracts to geometric patterns and many other forms of art on their canvases.
About 200 youngsters are exhibiting around 600 paintings for the 14th Annual Art Carnival. “The creation of art is not the fulfilment of a need but the creation of a need. Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time,” says Ashwini Kumar Prithviwasi from Delhi Collage of Art.
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Attempting to give a platform to budding artists, senior artists have curated this event. As a result what meets the eye is a plethora of canvases, which exude creativity. For instance, the painting depicting a distorted female form engrossed in her thoughts — the subject’s dress merges with the bright orange background. “Every dimension holds a different space in my subconscious mind,” says Ritika Verma, a Second Year student.
The lines in Verma’s painting show her perception of space. “The frames in the background relate to the female’s memories whereas the objects in the foreground are related to her present life,” she adds.
Certain works are painted by the youngsters in groups such as the artwork by Mansha Bedi, Shashank Shukla and Deepti Budhiraja. Their painting depicts entangled human legs in a blue backdrop. “We have pseudo virtual friends and we’re all suffocating in a tangled mess,” says Bedi.
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Shukla adds, “Some crave enlightenment, trying to find a way to untangle from the commercialism that surrounds us. And then there are those, to whom our theories seem philosophical. We are millennials, wild, untamed, to be free.”
The works by students are interactive and are created with the thought to get back to the roots and preserve the old, classical traditions and culture of art. Prithviwasi adds, “Today art is going through a transformation with Indian artists opting for modern and contemporary art, so this is our small initiative to bring back the old form of art which has somewhere lost its sheen.”
CATCH IT LIVE
WHAT: Annual Art Carnival
WHERE: All India Fine Arts & Crafts Society (AIFACS), 1, Rafi Marg
ON TILL: May 27
TIMINGS: 11am to 7pm
NEAREST METRO STATION: Central Secretariat on Yellow Line