All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS) in New Delhi has been mounting some spectacular exhibitions, at times not even noticed by certain sections of the media that go by ‘who' inaugurates it.
This time too, a captivating show of a few artists from Rajasthan's Aakar Group has made its presence felt. These artists have been painting ever since they could hold a brush properly. One of them is Anupam Bhatnagar, a lecturer of PG Fine Arts, Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati University, Ajmer.
Anupam's works depict the tradition of Rajasthan, its dances with and without peacocks, how colourfully the Rajasthani women dress up and so on. His latest in the show is a puppet series which portrays how we play at the hands of destiny like stringed beings.
Amit Rajvanshi, Anupam's student, has depicted a “Pranav Shrankhala”, which is about the eternal relationship between men and women. Interestingly, he has used the figure of peacock both as a hero and a lover. Hence, his body is that of a peacock and the head is of a man.
Amid lustrous and green nature he is seen with his woman in different moods; chatting, teasing her and so on. Besides, his woman also rides a horse and exudes a different personality, posture and mood. His woman also exhibits qualities of a fish — her delicacy, rhythm, shyness and restless, hence she is seen with a fish in few of Amit's paintings of oil and acrylic.
Ashok Kumar Dixit, a Fine Arts associate professor in the Hindu College of Education, Sonepat, spells magic with his aesthetically rich texture produced with great effort in his oil works. They are about peacefulness, togetherness, unity and womanhood.
Says Anupam about the show and his Aakar group, “We started this group with seven artists in Rajasthan in 1988 to break free from the clutches of some senior artist-teachers in our institution who would not let us grow. Now, this group has people from Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Gurgaon, Udaipur, Bhilwara, Jaipur and Jodhpur.
Even artists from Delhi now want to join us. The most important thing about this group is that we let our students grow and even do art shows with them without any ego hassles. We have done various group shows across India besides five solo shows.”
The show concludes on January 9.
