International Artists Come Together for Art Residency in Mukteshwar

There were first timers, students, professionals, and international award winners among the participants, who got equal opportunity to interact and stay at Justa Luxe Retreat at Mukteshwar, atop Kumaon Hills, surrounded by coniferous forests, with a view to the Himalayan range. Artists get to draw on the specially-arranged open spaces, often attached to the fruit orchards and streams nearby. They are also taken out to the mountain dwellers, to show them the traditional ways of cultivation, cooking and dance forms.

“Indian streets have got a lot of pink, and you can see that in my works, whereas the Egyptian landscape is more of earthly colours. But everywhere, we can see the women are working hard, be it India or any other country I have visited for camps and exhibitions,” says Thasneem, who in between, was marvelling at two native women carrying logs of wood on their head and wearing traditional costume. Tasneem follows geometrical patterns in her paintings, colouring them in squares, triangles and rectangles, mostly the faces of people half hidden in between.

Three more artists had joined her at the camp from Egypt. Among them was Hussein Zahran, a faculty of fine arts from Alexandria University. Hussein finds a lot of similarities between art in India and Egypt and connect it to the old civilisations both the countries had. He prefers painting Greek Gods and at the Mukteswhar camp he was trying to bring in the comparisons between Greek and Roman gods.

Artist couple from Thailand – Suriya Chayacharoen and Pittawan Suwapap – have been visiting the Chitrashaala camps multiple times. This is Pittawan’s third time and she introduced her husband to the camp, who is attending for the second time, and wishes to visit the next years as well.

For Debaroti Seth from Malda in West Bengal, attending the Chitrashaala camp for the second time, the conglomeration is a great opportunity to meet international artists and witness their techniques and learn about the trends in other sides of the world. “We get to know closely about the other cultures, more art enthusiasts and more art languages,” says Debaroti, who conducts exhibitions in major Indian cities including Hyderabad.

Avinda Tishan and K. Mathis Kumar are artists from Sri Lanka and students at the University of Lucknow. Mathis Kumar is a research scholar and Avinda is a postgraduate student in fine arts. For them, this camp is a huge exposure to the established artists from India and abroad. “The junior artists usually do not get such wide platforms to learn and paint. Here, we are getting treated along with many established artists with much experience and work along with them. By staying together and sharing a lot of experiences, we get a lot of new learning,” say Mathis and Avinda.

The concept of such a large-scale art camp was stemmed from the many travel experiences by founder and CEO of Justa Hotels and Resorts Ashish Vohra, who is an art enthusiast and wishes to adorn the walls of his every establishment with a variety of paintings from across the globe. On one of his visits to West Bengal, he met some very talented artists, who struggle to meet their daily expenses but dedicated to art and whose works excel many of the celebrated international artists. Vohra started a scholarship for students enrolling for fine arts from 2007 onwards. The students will receive Rs 3,000 per month. Vohra is joined by wife Deepika Govind, who is also the co-founder of Justa Hotels & Resorts.