His name is Sunface, and he brightens everyone’s days. The unofficial ‘mascot’ of Blue Cross of India is holding a red Christmas bow in his mouth, his beady brown eyes and black fur against a background of Juno -esque orange stripes. The portrait is part of city-based artist Alamelu Annhamalai’s upcoming exhibition Canvas for a Cause.
Until one year ago, the famously ambidextrous 26-year-old was afraid of animals, dogs in particular. And then she joined the Blue Cross of India as a volunteer; it was one of her 2019 goals to get over this fear. “I got a sense of community there, getting to know people (including school kids) who would volunteer and work there. I felt that if I can’t help as much as them, how else can I contribute?” says Alamelu.
Art, she felt, was a good way to bring attention to the cause, and so over the last month, they put together the Canvas for Cause exhibition. A collection of her works, made over the past couple of years will be for sale here, and half the sales will be donated to Blue Cross of India.
While Alamelu’s art is not bound to a specific theme (she uses multiple media such as acrylic, watercolor, pen and ink, and charcoal), her work is generally concept-driven. “Each piece has a story of its own,” she says.
For this exhibition, she will be displaying paintings from her solo exhibition at Lalit Kala Akademi, ‘A Soldier of Hope’. She had also worked with the solo exhibition’s curator Anisha Palat, to create a series of paintings based on the animals Anisha had photographed. The title of each painting — from Guidance (an elephant mother and child) to Amicable (peeping meerkats) — reflects the qualities Alamelu associates with these photographs.
“I also have a series in which I have taken all the pages out of a book, ( The Art of Remaking Men by Paul Campbell) and illustrated on, and framed each one of them,” she says. “I wanted to point out how we as a generation have stopped reading books all that much.”
The old printed pages of the book are embellished with pen, ink and charcoal drawings, each inspired by the content, and certain words, on that particular page, which stood out for Alamelu. The series has 55 pieces, one on each page of the book, and 15 of them are still up for sale.
For the three days of the exhibition, Alamelu will be doing ambidextrous live sketches at 5 pm. Incidentally, the painting that made her viral (an Instagram video of her painting with both hands has garnered over eight million views), will also be displayed there.
The paintings on sale range anywhere from ₹500 to ₹80,000. “I am all for affordable art. People have this impression that art is only for the elite, but you can find one in any budget, if you know where to look,” she says.
Canvas for a Cause will be inaugurated at Shakunthala Art Gallery, CP Art Centre, Alwarpet, on February 28, 6 pm. The exhibition and sale will be held from February 29 to March 2, 10 am to 7 pm.
