10-year-old Alayna Zaid, a young painter and fifth standard student of the Inventure Academy, gripped from childhood to express her imagination with her brush, was shy to acknowledge her elation during her first exhibition of 40 abstract paintings last year. She shrugged when asked about it and said, “I don’t know how it feels. All I know is I like to paint different themes such as nature and animals in different textures.”
In the last one year, Alayna, who remains a shy kid sounds precocious as her prodigious talent opens her up to explain her work. “Over the last year I have made an effort to learn new art forms. And this year I have started painting unicorns. They have a magical, fairytale quality to them and are said to represent innocence, purity and childhood!”
Alayna reads up about art online to expand her knowledge of different forms, styles, and artists. “It helped me create something new, and grow as an artist,” says Alayna who has brought in 43 paintings this year at her exhibition “Imaginarium II” at Sublime Galleria, a showcase which seems to have gained a momentum after the success of her previous exhibition.
Over the last year, Alayna has been taking intensive classes from teachers, both from her school and outside, honing her skills and embracing abstraction, her favourite medium. “Her latest collection is described by her teachers Samyuktha and Nimmi Ravindran as ‘complex yet accessible’ showcasing her love for colours, textures, and shapes,” says Alayna’s mother Uzma Irfan.
Alayna was three when her mother noticed her talent. “The same year I put her in informal ‘observe and learn classes’ with Nimmi Ravindran as she was too young. Her brush is what she plays with more during her summer vacation and her paintings are her aesthetic games. That’s how much she is obsessed with her art works,” adds Uzma.
As for Alayna who has worked with a variety of mediums including glue with paint, shaving foam with paint, even tissue paper for creating textures, this year her teachers helped her broaden her repertoire. “I decided to explore abstract painting in greater detail with this collection and I have incorporated lines, textures, colours, and shapes into my work,” says Alayna. “For this particular collection,my art teacher Samyuktha played an important role in shaping my experiment with newer techniques,” she says.
Alayna hasn’t kept count of her art works. She has completed more than 100 paintings till date, even as her craze for the abstract form continues to haunt her. “I love painting abstract waterfalls! The perfect blend of colours is what makes abstracts so beautiful. I keep trying new combinations of colours to see how each painting looks significantly different from the next. I’ve also created several other types of artworks using oil, acrylic, glass painting, spray-painting, and art forms using water colours,” she says.
A part of the proceeds from Imaginarium II will be given to the KIDWAI Memorial Institute of Oncology. The paintings will be on display till August 4 (Monday – Saturday, 11 am – 7pm) at the Sublime Galleria, UB City. For details call 22221667.
