Naresh Babu Ayyalasomayajula of Visakhapatnam received the Bharat Gaurav Award, organised by the Bharat Gaurav Awards Foundation, in the ‘Art and Culture’ category, at a function organised jointly by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi recently.
Popular as NB among friends and Bobby among many others, a keen interest in art since childhood made him dabble with the brush in different media like water colours and oil paintings. But, that did not last long with education and career taking priority.
The latent passion in him was revived while he was doing his Bachelor of Architecture (B. Arch) at JNTU, Hyderabad. “The creative skills of fine arts students inspired me to sketch portraits of eminent personalities and gift the portraits to them,” he recalled during an interaction with The Hindu at his expo titled ‘Black Magic’, organised by Antarmukha, a society for creative art and culture, recently.
The only awardee from South India in the category of art and culture, Bobby has contributed to the art form with over 100 charcoal arts till date. He plans to host an annual all India art exhibition for artists in January 2018.
