Connecting the world through art

Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay would have lost its charm if, by any chance, Thakur and Gabbar Singh would have become friends in the end.

Even in our dreams we cannot imagine the two becoming buddies but Vysakh Siddharth, 25-year-old graphic designer thought out-of-the-box when he designed something related to Friendship Day celebrations. He made the two with arms around each other sharing a bonding and for good measure added a tagline ‘Make Friends Not War’.

Vysakh, a member of Touchtalent.com, a portal holding online art exhibition, decided to take part in this month’s thematic exhibition on ‘friendship’. As such, he came up with interesting ideas of making two competitive food chains –KFC and McDonalds friends on paper through his creativity, two grenade bombs looking for friendship and many more such humorous yet thought-provoking ideas found
expression on paper.

“An artist justifies a theme when viewers create a parallel between the theme and the characters in his work. I belie-ve in conveying the message in humorous, yet sarcastic style,” says Siddharth.

On the other hand another artist Pubali Dutta, has displayed her artwork on the beauty of a woman. She loves to make portraits of women as well as highlight the beauty by focusing on simple gestures.
“Considering the atrocity faced by women across the globe, it is high time that everybody should come together and bring a change,” says Dutta.

But what makes her work different from others is the medium she uses to paint these pictures. “I am fond of mixed media. Therefore, you will find everything from watercolours to acrylic, charcoal pencils and oil colours,” says Dutta.

Like Siddharth and Dutta, there are many young artists not only from India, but other countries too, who are celebrating ‘friendship’ this month by sharing their work and establishing a bond through a common platform. The portal has creative users in over 192 countries.

It has so far organised more thatn 10 global online art exhibitions and the one on peace and war is the latest highlight.“Because the month has begun with International Day of Friendship, we decided to make it a theme” says Moha-mmed Waseem, the managing director of the portal. “Today, we are observing

this day on a wider spectrum. It is not restricted to romantic relationships or bonding between two people. Instead it’s about people from different countries and communities. Through art we are trying to break the boundaries of social status, culture, religion and race, and asking
people to come together.”