A variety of paintings were on display at the valedictory of the four-day national artists camp organised by the Karnataka Lalithkala Academy at the Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities (MCPH) here on Wednesday.
A large number of people visited the venue to see the paintings by 15 senior artists from different parts of the country. Bhaskar Rao, artist from Bengaluru, painted two works, which showed floral designs, leaves and nature. Both paintings were semi-abstract and acrylic on canvas. “I start with a definite idea, then it grows,” he said.
Another painter Chandranath Acharya painted a king with a dog and a butterfly. This was a painting in his ‘king’ series. He said that the dog close to the king represented the soldiers, while the butterfly on his finger signified his tastes. This painting was acrylic on canvas. However, in his other watercolour, Mr. Acharya painted Lord Shiva and Parvati in a romantic mood.
Kirti Chandak from Puducherry had painted two artworks, which focused on nature. In one painting, a lady is seen listening to a conch shell and a seagull has one of the shells. In another, there was a flower. She said that she wanted to show how conch shells and flowers connected people to nature. Both these paintings showed longing or nostalgia for nature, she said.
The two paintings of Madhu V., a painter from Ernakulam, showed a heritage house, each suspended by a rope. He said that local traditions and even languages were vanishing due to the onslaught of fast paced change. “My two paintings show the two buildings from remote villages being relocated and reinstalled at the Heritage Village here. When something is kept in suspension, one gets time to reflect on it,” he said.
The paintings of artists B. Devaraj and K.S. Appajaiah from Bengaluru, Gayathri Desai from Dharwad, Madhavi Adivreker and Jagtap Surendra from Mumbai, Jagadish Kamble from Kalaburagi, Manas Jana from Bhubaneshwar, Yuvan Bodhisatvar from Chennai, Subhas Bahu from Hyderabad, Alok Sharma from Indore, and P.S. Punchithaya from Kasaragod were also on display.
Speaking at the valedictory, Narayan Sabhahit, Registrar of Manipal University, said that without liberal arts and humanities, the progress of the society would be truncated. Science was for mind, while art was for heart, he said.
M.S. Murthy, Chairman of Lalilthkala Academy, Nikhil Govind, Director of MCPH, and Ramesh Rao, senior artist, were present.
