While one often gets to hear about eminent artists creating fabulous work, this week, upcoming artists from colleges around town stole the show. Take for instance the final year art show of eight MFA students of the Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, NEO Art, that’s getting a lot of positive feedback.
Among the 70 artworks on display, the students experimented with various mediums and made sure that their themes struck a chord, not just with their classmates but also with eminent artists such as Thota Vaikuntam, Laxma Goud and Laxman Aelay, who interacted with them during the process.
All the artists have unique work, but there are a few that stop you in your tracks. Asgar Ali has developed his own medium that sees a mix of etching and the use of LED lights. “I love to experiment with mediums. If you look at my artwork, it seems like any other until the light turns on,” says Asgar, whose works are based on the theme of war.
Venu Kotla’s art work shows Mahatma Gandhi in three forms, symbolising the lack of social work done to help children.
Meghna Shinde is an artist who has always worked on women’s issues. This time, her 13 works also dealt with topics like demonetisation. “I used old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes along with fake ATM cards for a piece. It was titled ‘The Last Supper’, because it represents the last few days with those notes, before demonetisation pushed the country towards the digital era. I didn’t do a positive or a negative take on this because I wanted the audience to judge for themselves,” says Meghna, who has also worked on installations using day-to-day objects like pins and buttons.
Venu Kotla was another artist whose work caught the eyes of many. 11 of his works were displayed, which included a two minute documentary called Speaking Rocks, which was also showcased at the Kochi Biennale last year. He says, “My works deal with social causes. The work on Gandhiji has three Gandhis in the frame. The real man and a child dressed like Gandhi who is holding a note which has Gandhiji’s photo on it. It shows that after all these years, we’ve still not been able to do anything concrete for children.”
