A fair to remember

It was a rather colourful day for art lovers at the ‘Chitra Santhe’ on Sunday. Kumara Krupa Road and the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath were brimming with people flowing in and out throughout the day. Each stall held its own personality as the artists displayed their works and passersby stopped by to admire, buy and strike conversations with them.

From caricatures to vibrant frames, from cartoonists to pottery, the fair had it all. Sandhya Hasija, an artist from the City, works on A3 size artworks and bigger frames in mixed media. “I have done many works in oil on canvas and have worked on a series of paintings on Rajasthani folk women in watercolour paints,” she said.

Sandhya, who participated in the ‘Santhe’ earlier, said that this time the response from people was better. The attractive part of her display was the bottle art which had portraits made out of Plaster- of-Paris on them.

Simple works like floral paintings by artist Roopa Hegde also shared the limelight at the ‘Santhe’. “From a 12 by 12 inch frame to 15.5 by 20 inch frame, I have worked on flowers like rose, hibiscus among many. I also make greeting cards.” She said that despite it being a sunny afternoon, the stretch was packed with visitors.

Vidya Shivaprasad was also excited about this year’s turnout as she displayed her works of oil on canvas, pen shading etc. She said, “It was wonderful to see a crowd like this and get appreciated for my efforts.”

Visitors were seen clicking selfies and taking photographs with the artworks and the artists. One of the stalls which saw a lot of attention was the one which housed a grand painting sized 6 feet by 4 feet, called ‘Our Traditional Beauties’, worth Rs 3 lakh. This work was done by Gokulam Vijay, an artist from Coimbatore. “Emoting different feelings, this painting got me a lot of attention. I worked on this oil on canvas work for four-and-a-half months. The work shows the traditional flower-sellers from our place and emphasises the skin tone of the people.” Gokulam said that this is the fifth edition that he has been a part of and he looks forward to it each year.

Tribal art also found many admirers. Warli works by Veena Pradeep garnered much attention. “Warli is an artform which depicts daily events from people’s lives.” The works which were done on a hardboard base or a jute and natural mud canvas, had drawings in white on them. “The drawings are done with the white mixture, which is made of chalk powder and glue,” said Veena.

While the crowd was bustling from every corner, some of the art lovers who weren’t stall owners were busy drawing and painting their favourites. ‘Deccan Herald’ and ‘Prajavani’ had organised a painting competition at the venue. Punya Kreethi, one of the participants of the drawing competition, was busy pencil-drawing the Lotus feet and Lord Krishna.

He said, “I come here every year and this time I came across the competition and decided to take part.” The crowd also saw regular customers hopping from stall to stall to find something they want to take home. Soumya and Vijayalakshmi, visitors of the exhibition, added, “The collection was great this year and was more affordable compared to the last.”