Brush with creativity

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Manpriya Singh

Much more than an appreciative audience, any form of art needs an interested audience. When it comes to the heart of Punjab, it always lay in performing arts, followed by a few cherished craft. So, where does visual art figure in the art scenario?

The bad news is that things are changing but at a snail’s pace. The good news? Things are changing. Here’s a look at art and artists in a few prominent cities of Punjab.

Take Amritsar for instance. There have always been a few passionate students wanting to pursue fine arts.The city that has all that it takes for culture to flourish—rich history and the colonial past.

“Students would love to pursue art, but there is just one college for fine arts and that too is only for girls,” George Freeman cites from his personal experience at having to move out of the city to pursue a Master’s degree at the Government College of Art, Chandigarh. “There isno dearth of inspiration though,” adds the artist, who now shuttles between Mumbai and Amritsar. “My mentor is the National Award winning artist BaldevGambhir. I didn’t have to go far. My inspiration is Vincent Van Gogh. I again didn’t have to go far at all. But an artist has this added responsibility of being at the right time at the right space,” he adds, now having spread out in several verticals of applied art.

Online portals have increased the reach of the artists,but not necessarily they brought the exposure home. “Never ever I have seen Punjabis buying an original work of art. Considering the zest they reserve for food, cars and all things branded! Maybe they’ve just about started with reprints a nd landscapes but that’s about it,” Gagan Gambhir, Jalandhar-based artist, laughs off the situation but in no way undermines it.

Having been brought up in Amritsar, and studied art in Chennai and Kolkata, before graduating from Apeejay College of Fine Arts in Jalandhar, he can vouch for a few facts when asked for comparisons across the states of India and cities of Punjab. “In Chandigarh, people are aware, they visit on the day of the inauguration but even a fraction of that footfall is not maintained on the rest of the days,” he adds, having recently exhibited in the City Beautiful in a group show.

A few commissioned artworks in the form of landscapes have found their way to upcoming commercial spaces in cities like Amritsar and Jalandhar. For instance, Amritsar-based artist Narinder Singh’s wooden sculpture, titled Open Window. “It was picked up as it was, as anartwork in its true sense, rather than an artwork tailor-made as per the vision of interior designers,” adds the sculptor, who is an art teacher at Government Art School.

Also a governing member of the Council for Indian Academy of Fine Arts, he believes that good artists exist in every state of Punjab, but courtesy the exposure, more so in Chandigarh. “When it comes to numbers, in the entire Punjab, Chandigarh houses the best artists,” opines the sculptor, who has exhibited solos shows in Amritsar and Ludhiana. “There are hardly any art galleries to exhibit.The few private ones have just about started coming up the bigger cities.” Will that necessarily translate onto an interested audience remains to be seen.