Varna Bimba’ that showcased the works of students of the Painting Department, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat and their teacher Muni Mohan, was a record of sorts, for it was for the first time that the 4th year students of the institution were organising such an exhibition.

The expo dominated by acrylic medium based works saw Monish, Navya, Nandini, Prasanna Kumar, Preethi N Rao, Sreenath, Sohini Chattopadhyay, Shruti Suresh, Poornashree and Swetha Jadhav bring out their creative best.

“ We had organised the show to promote our students as most galleries display the works of established artists alone. We are planning many such other initiatives. In fact after looking at the catalogue consisting of the works of these students, a Kolkata based gallery has invited us to display our work there,” he added.

Poornashree in this show had moved away from her favourite subject landscapes and worked at bringing out the `feminine’ qualities of Lord Krishna. Her paintings titled ‘Sublime’ aimed at making people think.

“People can relate to paintings when there is logic behind your work. I just want to make paintings that people can understand,’’ she said. ‘Swethavarna’ a series of three paintings by Swetha traced three different emotions of a woman.

While one painting showed a woman admiring the moon, visualising her beloved’s face in it, the other depicted one meditating below the moon, seeking peace. The third painting showed a woman trying to forget her grief and find solace in the moon’s beauty.

“The idea is very original and through the paintings I want to create my own identity,” she said.

While Nandini had used different geometrical shapes and colours to bring out the various moods of people, Navya had used varied strokes, pulls and colours to bring out different expressions.

Prasanna Kumar’s paintings spoke of how positive attitude was key to success and Preethi’s ‘Strokes and Hues’ series used human faces to bring out different textures and hues.        

Monish’s works were about giving a modern touch to traditional painting and Shruti’s paintings had the theme ‘Faces’. Sohini’s works were her response to her surroundings. Her collection was titled ‘Survival of the fittest’.

But contrary to this idea, all the participants had only appreciation for their classmates and said that they had so much to learn from each other’s works and would always look forward to contributing to one and another’s development.