Celebrating 425 years of Hyderabad anniversary: Painting the city

How does one pay tribute to a city that has culture, tradition and history seeped into every corner? Prshant Lahoti from Kalakriti Art Gallery came up with an answer: Through art. Four artists of different media were brought together to celebrate the 425th anniversary of Hyderabad.

Amit Mehra through photographs, Orijit Sen using digital art, Prathap Modi with prints and Poushali Das who will be creating block painting on silk, will show Hyderabadis a side of the city they’ve never seen. Prshant says, “Since the artists are not from here, they will be able to pick up things that we don’t spot.”

Prathap, who studied in Vizag, visited Hyderabad often and says the city always felt like home. Primarily a printmaker, Modi says, “I was in Hyderabad for 15 days, sometime back. I went around and shot over 1,000 photos. The idea is to create etchings with all the elements that make the city iconic.”

Modi’s work might sound simple, but it is anything but that. From the 1,000 photos he clicked, he will be using 50-60 to create a photo-etching using Charminar as the establishing image, with various places from the city imposed on it.

“When you think of Hyderabad, the first image that pops up in your head is the Charminar and I did not want to change that. So I made sure that the other places and events feature in the work ,too,” says Modi. “I visited the Salar Jung Museum, Chowmahalla Palace and also places that people have forgotten. Even things that might seem inconsequential, such as an old attar bottle, find a place in my work,” he adds.

Then you have works by Orijit, a famous graphic artist and designer. His digital art piece, has been aptly titled The Kite Eating Tree, an idea that fell into place when he was working on a larger project about Hyderabad.

“This work is a study on the life of people in the Old City. I did a recce last year for an interactive art piece about the streets of Hyderabad. I came across a solitary banyan tree in Shalibanda, which has kites entangled on it, and my work is centred around that. I’m using it as a means to comment on the way the old and new meet in the city,” says Sen.

Meanwhile, photographer Amit went across the city to shoot anything and everything significant. “I find it fascinating that the city has this blend of old and new; it’s a living heritage. But my work will not show the differences. I will be finding similarities between the old and the new,” says Mehra.

While the three artists are showcasing the city, artist Poushali is working on artworks inspired not just by the city but also art that is quite famous here, explains Dhritabrata, the curator of the show. “The challenge for Poushali was to imbibe unique Hyderabadi artwork, which is why she will be creating art on silk cloth using block prints. All the artists’ works will be made into limited edition prints,” he adds.

Poushali says, “At the Chowmahalla Palace, I saw how the centuries-old handwritten Quran has been preserved safely. I found that there was a lot of love and warmth behind that. That was something I couldn’t forget. Then the block print such as kalamkari was another inspiration that I took from the city to create my work.

“For my art piece, I will be doing block printing on silk. There is another surprise element in the artwork. It has to do with a particular art form,” she explains.