Brush with the young brigade

Amarjot Kaur

Of late, painting exhibitions at art colleges have been opening new vistas of creative expressions that have become more experimental and interactive over the years. Millennials have for inspiration the synergy between technological evolution and humans, and the fast-changing contours of new-age popular culture, environment, and everything that influences their existence as well as identity. We take a look at a few young college-going artists, who chose to stay back this summer, and ask them what excites them about the city and life in general.

Men & machines

Otherwise from Meerut, Abhishek Rathi has been putting up in the city for more than two years now. His ‘Pierre Jeanneret style’ furniture was exhibited recently at the 122-year celebration of Jeanneret’s birthday at the newly opened Open Hand Art Studios, a day residency on the premises of Le Corbusier Centre.

He dabbles in nine styles, from making caricatures, polygons, doodles, mechanical characters and character designing of mythological characters to minimal illustration, cubic form sculpture, wood-carving in cubic form and water colour.

Presently pursuing a Masters degree in Fine Arts from Government College of Arts, Abhishek paints his caricatures giving them the illustration style. “I did a wall-painting too at Nayagaon. It was against drug abuse,” says Abhishek. “I have also designed the logo for VR Punjab and stood second in the Chandigarh Travel and Tourism Logo designing. I designed props for Mrs Universe too. However, it’s the mechanical portraits that I love painting the most,” he adds. Using a Micron Pen, Abhishek paints the synergy between men and machines. “I am, in fact, the only person in the West of India to make such art,” he gushes with pride. Abhishek has also exhibited his works in Mumbai.

East meets west

Nameirakpam Rishikanta Singh, pursuing his masters in fine arts, is a 24-year-old from Manipur who is still recovering from Chandigarh’s cultural hangover. “I have been here for a year-and-a-half and when I came here, I got a cultural shock. There’s something very liberating and inspiring about the way city women walk around the streets, the way they talk and their confidence. Where I come from, women are simple. I love the city and paint almost everything that catches my fancy, but most of all I love painting portraits,” he says.

Using oil, charcoal, and acrylic, Rishikanta has been painting several portraits of men and women in Manipur, relating them to the culture of the city. In Chandigarh, he does pretty much the same. “It wasn’t easy adjusting to Chandigarh. It took me one year. I have now come to see beyond faces, through faces. Portraits don’t just tell the story of a person or his/her individual journey, they tell us so much about the place they come from, the food they eat, their culture, their environment... everything,” he says.

It’s a bizarre world

Gurjeet Singh’s toilet series evoked a strange reaction from people who visited the exhibition in which his work was put on display. “I wonder what put them off about looking at a toilet in an art exhibition. I think it’s so much a part of our everyday life; and here we are talking of Andy Warhol selling Campbell Soup Can paintings for megabucks!,” laughs the 24-year-old.

Known for painting anything from Toilet series to Fart series, Gurjeet defines wacky as the new normal. “My bhabhi’s ring fell in an Indian toilet and it was followed by a family drama. Some people were laughing, others were tensed and I was fascinated. That’s how the Toilet series came up. Art is not obliged to make you happy. In my case, I just want people to understand what they are ashamed of. Like farting, for instance, is so normal and you can’t always control it, so might as well accept it,” he says.

Renewing the old

Parul Rathee, 24, is pursuing a Masters degree in graphics, and gets inspired from everything. “I like Rabindranath Tagore because he too was inspired by global styles and was a writer too. I write as well. I pick up stuff from the society and explore human nature. I make handmade prints with old, traditional techniques of printmaking in the pre-historic era, which are now lost. I like Kavita Nair and Jyoti Bhatt’s works because they explore new styles of printmaking,” she says.

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