The artist within...

myriad shades

CMR Institute of Technology recently hosted ‘Creative Encounters’, a CMR national art camp where artists from across the country stayed on campus. 

The results were masterpieces that are currently being exhibited on campus. The students got a chance to interact with the artists, spend quality time with them to understand how they work and pick up the knack of creating good art.

The engineering students said that they don’t always get to indulge in art and now when they got a chance they didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Shaik Ibrahim Ahmed, first-year student of CMRIT said, “There was a burst of creativity and what one got to see was students going all out to unleash the artist in them. We got to see some loud works and creative expression on canvas.” Sujatha, another first-year student, who participated in the show, said, “It is tough when we try and do something on our own but I didn’t know I had so much potential until I worked hand-in-hand with the artists and created something even I didn’t know I could.”

The management of the college always wanted to do its bit to propagate and popularise art. Speaking about how they came up with such an initiative, KC Ramamurthy, Chairman of CMR Group of Institutions, said that artists need to be encouraged to grow. “The students got a first-hand experience of how artists work.

 The artists stayed on campus and the students were encouraged to create their own masterpiece. This is our way of promoting both students and artists who have immense talent but don’t have the avenue to express it. Students who are all budding engineers were driven and instigated to experiment with art,” he reasoned.

 Over the few days in the art camp, the artists and students get to mingle with each other, share individual and collective concerns and also get to observe each other's processes and techniques, something not possible when each is in the solitude of his or her own studio. Sharing her perspective, Lina Vincent Sunish, an art historian, who was an integral part of the event said, the CMR Group has created a platform for the participants and observers to explore the synergy of voices that arises from sharing thoughts, ideas and creative expression in a common space.

 “Each piece of work communicates something differently, allowing the viewers to engage with the work through means of their own understanding and experience, and fulfilling the purpose of an artistic encounter,” she said.