JOIN USArtMantram, a not-for-profit organisation engaged in promoting art, artists and art awareness, recently inaugurated ‘Phenomenal Women, That is Me’, a five-day art show in tribute to late poet Maya Angelou, at the ITC Windsor.
The show featured works by up-and-coming as well as established painters who explored a variety of medium like acrylic on canvas, mixed media and collage on paper in both traditional and contemporary styles.
These included Ranjita Kant, Kavita Vardhan, Aparijitha Vasudev, Baiju Dev, Purshotham Adve, Manas Ranjan Jena, G Subra, L Saraswathy, Ramesh Terdal and Apu Debnath.
Shradha Rathi, a featured artist, said, “The theme was women portraits and I shared one of my works that represents the apsaras from Ellora.
This is a marvellous platform for artists and it’s well curated. Even as an artist, it’s encouraging to see the featured works.” Following the opening of the exhibition, Jija Harisingh, founder of ArtMantram, presented the ‘Annual Mantram Women Achievers Awards 2014’.
The three chosen awardees were music diva Kavita Krishnamurthy, Kannada poet HL Pushpa and heritage art revivalists Anita Reddy, who enjoyed a ‘petha’ being placed on their head along with the shawl before the cameramen thronged them for shots.
Kavita said that she was grateful as this was her first lifetime achievement award. “It’s about time,” she joked.
“It’s been almost 40-years as a professional singer and I dedicate this award to my mother, the ‘gurus’ who have taught me, the songwriters who have written the songs I sang and the directors who gave me that chance.
I also found my husband in this path of music,” she smiled, following which she sang a few lines from Pyar Hua Chupke Se from ‘1942: A Love Story’.
Jija Harisingh also addressed the gathering, saying, “These awards are exclusively for women they women have to work twice as hard and be 10 times greater than men to be recognised.
We’re happy that such a stellar group of women made it here to receive the award and we wanted to celebrate womanhood and people who stand for it.” She added, “All of us are artists in some ways. We just need to bring it out in us.”
Also present on the occasion were Kannada actress Sumalatha Ambareesh, Chiranjeevi Singh and Manu Baligar, former director, Kannada and Culture, Government of Karnataka.
All proceeds will go to charity. The exhibition will be on till June 22.