The art and cultural complex of the Department of Tourism, Shilparamam – Jatara, at Madhurawada has a makeover with a number of sculptures being installed at various locations.
Sculptures made of scrap steel, cement, and fibreglass are dotting the landscape, giving visitors something to mull over.
The sculptures are a mix of modern and traditional, there is a decorated bull with all its four legs on a small stool, then there are metal monsters out of the Transformers movie, and then there are abstract metal sculptures, a fish standing on its tail at the edge of the lake, then there is a girl carrying a head-load of books with alphabets on her dress, there is a moving concrete bell at the water edge. There is a scrap metal crane standing on the water edge looking into the water ready to prey on fish.
Picnickers spending Sunday on the lawns were walking around the objects of art that were conjured up by students of the Fine Arts Department of Andhra University during the art, sculpture camp jointly organised by the Department of Tourism and the department.
Students and sculptors are still working on the blocks of stone to create three traditional images and seven abstract modern ones. These should be ready soon and then they would be moved to their final location, art camp in-charge and professor of Department of Fine Arts Ravi Shankar Patnaik said.
The works are impressive and easily compete with the ones at Shilparamam in Hyderabad, Director of State Art Gallery E. Siva Nagi Reddy said. He went round the works on Sunday.
The work on Theravada Buddhist icons being sculpted at Thotlakonda is going on briskly. Permissions are needed from the Archaeology Department for installing them.
Special Chief Secretary of Tourism Chandana Khan, who was in-charge of Archaeology Department, had cleared it and permission should come through soon, he added.
The department hoped to conduct the valedictory of the art camp in the middle of the month, and by that time all work should be completed, Mr. Siva Nagi Reddy said.
