Sameer and Harsha Nagi’s Anybody can paint: Art as a therapy

Sameer and Harsha Nagi’s initiative ‘Anybody can paint’ not only rekindles the creative side of individuals, it also equips them with life lessons

August 31, 2017 03:55 pm | Updated 03:55 pm IST

It wasn’t an easy move for Sameer and Harsha Nagi to give up a decade-old stint as HRs in the corporate world and invest their energies in an initiative ‘Anybody can paint’ that helps crowds realise the therapeutic value of art. Sameerhad always liked painting and the joy it brought about. The salary cut due to to the career switch did hurt, but Sameer and Harsha felt they had to make the world a better place in their own little way.

Two years into their pursuit to spread the joy of painting, Sameer and Harsha say that years of conditioning and involvement with logic, proofs, score charts have made working employees feel that they have lost touch with their creative side. “We are here to prove them wrong, help them embrace a side of theirs they never knew about, prove everyone has the right brain and can create wonders. We help them rekindle the hobbies that came in way of their profession,” Harsha states.

In the sessions, Sameer guides the participants (who also paint with him) with their artworks (masterpiece) who work together on a similar theme. Midway through the session, they’re asked to exchange places with their co-participants and complete paintings on others’ canvasses, only to return to their original position to see how their masterpiece has shaped up. Harsha adds, “Through the training programmes that we have conducted with corporates, we understood that people wouldn’t want a lecture on ethics, values or leadership. This approach is our way of inculcating a ‘we’ mindset over ‘mine’. At the end of a session, every other person contributes to his/her co-participant’s masterpiece, they can’t call it ‘my artwork’.”

Sameer and Harsha have encountered participants who’ve said, “If you can make me paint, you can make anyone paint” and have taken to painting ever since. Their sessions often deal with abstract/modern art on acrylic and the participants get a sense of the paintings as Sameer explains aspects like background, mid-ground, foreground and so on to them. The duo add, “We give a certain method to the madness and help participants express their emotions on canvas.” The participants are provided with brushes, apron, paints and palletes with stands that help the orientation of the canvas.

To stay true to the intention of ‘Anybody can paint’, a session they are to host later this weekend will also have visually challenged individuals joining other participants (in collaboration with LV Prasad Eye Institute). “We have given them a brief training on how to form patterns, explained the sense of art. After being with them, we felt , so what if they can’t see, they have a creative eye better than those who can see,” states Harsha.

Through another wing of their initiative ‘iKhoj’ where they tap the right side of the human brain, the couple plans to come up with a similar model for music, poetry and theatre too. ‘Paint-astic’, a specific programme of theirs targeted at the corporates has each employee making small pieces that are later combined to create a bigger life-size image involving specific aspects related to a company i.e a pie-chart with the company’s core values or a tree with various branches.

(The event ‘Paint your Masterpiece will be held at Phoenix Arena on September 3, 10:30 am, Log on to www.anybodycanpaint.in for registrations)

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