Works of 10 women artists on display at city art gallery

Amritsar, June 10

An exhibition of works by 10 women artists from Amritsar opened today at the art gallery under its month-long Summer Art Festival. The exhibition comprises works of a group formed by budding and senior artists including Bharti Malhotra, Gursharan Kaur, Inderpreet Kaur, Sumedha and others.

Art from genres including paintings, sculptures, sketches and graphics was displayed, presenting techniques and individual style of these artists. The exhibition was inaugurated by Tajinder Chhina, who appreciated the acknowledgment that women artists in city are now receiving.

“The work of women artists often gets overshadowed due to limited opportunities and lack of an exclusive platform. The focus of the Indian Academy of Fine Arts (IAFA) is to bridge the gap between their home studios and galleries, besides give them audience while promoting their art,” said Tejinder.

Gursharan Kaur, pursuing art from the past 10 years, shared that women artist today have better opportunities to be visible. “Gradually, with more art platforms now being developed, women in art have become visible, their art is now reaching to people. Saleability has improved from a point that few years back, we could not expect much in terms of revenue from art. But now things are changing,” she said.

Gursharan has painted two works on Krishna, using acrylic as media. The paintings has Krishna in meditative pose and that’s Gursharan says how she imagines him to be. “My previous works were on Buddha, where I imagined how I see Buddha,” she said. Another senior artist Bharti Malhotra, who specialises in abstract and acrylic work, this time has brought in her work with resin. “Resin art is an upcoming popular genre of art but very few actually know how to work with all the elements and technique. I have used real elements like stones, sand, sea shells to complete a piece that depicts the elements of the earth,” she said.

The evening culminated with a superb show by theatre artists on play Pairan Ch Pava Dey Jhanjhran, a play by Gurinder Makna. The play, written by an NRI woman, as her semi biography, highlighted the life migrants from Punjab have to live, the struggles and the socio-cultural shock that get when they go to other countries chasing foreign dreams. It was like a reality check for people who believe that life becomes easy after migrating to Canada or the US or Australia.