Two artists, Wahida Ahmed and Sreekanth Kurva, showcased stunning artwork at the group art show Conversations & Pauses. While one deals with the forbidden fruit, the other depicts the majestic bull
The apple might have been the forbidden fruit, but that certainly didn’t stop artist Wahida Ahmed from making it her muse. “Have you noticed an apple?” she asks. “For me it resembles the womb of a woman... where the origin of life takes place and that’s where my interest in painting apples began,” says Wahida. One look at her paintings and you’ll understand that it isn’t just the apple that is being depicted here. There are birds, bees, and even fishes in her artwork that showcase life.
Ask her about the bee-hive like structure on the apple and she says, “Bees are like humans, especially women. They work hard not just for themselves but for the entire family... and I wanted to represent that through my work,” she says.
Currently, two of her works are on display at Gallery Space. While one apple has an old tree growing out of it, with birds returning to it, the other is that of a coral growing from an apple, with fish around it. “The tree represents older women, like our grandmothers or mothers. Even when they become old, just like the tree, they offer the same love,” she says.
Wahida’s works were recently bought by Reddy Labs and currently, she’s busy shuttling between Hyderabad and her home-town Guwahati.
How many times have you looked at bulls lazing around a signal junction and have been inspired to create something? Ask artist Sreekanth Kurva this question and he’ll simply show you his series of artworks on bulls. “As a child I would go out to buy milk every morning. On my way I would spot bulls just sleeping near the junction... they caught my attention,” explains Sreekanth on how he started sketching them.
Currently on display at the Gallery Space are two of his works, a mixed-media painting and a sculpture of a bull and both catch your attention. And though he has worked on paintings of different, animals, the bull remain his favourite. “This will be the first time that I display a mixed media painting of a bull in Hyderabad. My earlier works used to be collages, but this time I’ve worked with embroidered kutch cloth. The rest of the painting comprises of a difficult procedure of etching,” he says. For the rest of the painting, Sreekanth uses a method of etching that he developed himself.
“I first take an etching plate and then add acrylic colour to it. Once the colour gets dried, I peel it and incorporate it in my artwork,” he explains. For the sculptures too he follows a similar method. “The neck of the bull has very intricate work that is achieved through this process of etching,” says Sreekanth who is working on an upcoming project where he will display sculptures of a bull that weighs about 100 kg apart from a sculpture of a goat and a rhinoceros. “These sculptures are cast in bronze. I’m not a sculptor, but I took a chance and the results have pleased me,” he says.
— Priyanka Praveen
