When scarcity fuels art

Has it ever occurred to you that anything could be used as a tool to do art if you are inspired enough?

New York-based artist Jayanthi Moorthy, who recently had a successful show in the city’s OED gallery, demonstrated this the other day when she recently introduced the small gathering of art enthusiasts, primarily children, at the Orthic Creative Centre to some fine methods of creating art under scarcity.

So you had children and adults paintings away, and sculpting, using things as ordinary as coconut twigs, dry coconut fronds, petiole and the like — it’s a tad ironical that most of the children at the workshop were seeing it for the first time Constraints fuel creativity, as it propels you to find new frontiers, said the artist.

Wielding twigs and dry fronds instead of the brush, the workshop attendees made a splash on paper. Some of them chose to create patterns applying thick fronds or mini coconuts dabbed in acrylic paint on to the paper. While some others used the material as their canvas, paintings on them — using twigs, leaves and bare hands.

At the end of the session, each participant described what she or he thought of own work.

This was Ms. Moorthy’s second session on ‘art under constraint’ at Orthic.

Her exhibition at OED, which closed in the last week of February, was her first show in India. Titled, Together Alone, it showcased her paintings on canvas, digital site-specific installations and pigment prints. Her practice is interdisciplinary and straddles a range of media, including painting, photography, digital media and installations.