Artists liven up Hyderabad’s cultural ambiance with their art show

HYDERABAD: Jogen Chowdhury, Laxma Goud, Manu Parekh, Sakti Burman, Laxman Aelay, Shuvaprasanna, T. Vaikuntam, Bhaskar Rao, among others, had their artworks lined up at the Kings Crown Convention on Friday, is a cue to the scale and seriousness of the second edition of the India Art Festival (IAF) in Hyderabad.

Already established in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, the festival has found an audience here. Inaugurating the event were Patel Ramesh Reddy, chairman of the Tourism Corporation, alongside artists Laxman Aelay, Jagadish Chinthala, Ramana Reddy, Tudi Devender Reddy, writer-curator Prayag Shukla, and art collector Anju Poddar.

“A festival of this magnitude enriches Hyderabad’s cultural ambiance. It deserves to become a permanent annual celebration,” said Devender Reddy.

Several artists shared stalls. Subhash Babu Ravuri, art teacher at Hyderabad Public School and a senior artist exhibiting at IAF for the first time, was placed beside two younger participants — Rigden D Lama from Siliguri and G. Sailaja from Visakhapatnam.

“We were strangers,” said Subhash Babu. “They’re young, I’m older, but it’s been great talking to them.” He’s scheduled to give a live painting demo on Saturday. “I used to think I was too senior for events like this,” he admitted. “But meeting younger artists makes this worth it.”

Rigden Lama described his work as an attempt to change the mood of the homes it enters. “I paint light in darkness. Lamps, shadows, warmth. That’s all I try to create,” he said. His paintings, rooted in domestic still life, are deeply textured. “Though we’re from different states, yesterday while setting up, it didn’t feel that way,” he added. “This morning I asked sir why he hadn’t labelled his work. He said, ‘If I had to write about it, why would I paint?’ I’ll carry that for a long time.” And Sailaja, whose work ranges from stippling to resin and acrylic pours, said this was her first time exhibiting beyond Instagram. “People are noticing my work. That’s new. Until now, it was all online. But this feels different.”

Just across from them stood the sculptures of S. Kantha Reddy, a faculty member at JNAFAU and a recipient of the Lalit Kala Akademi National Award. His bronze pieces, and sculptures finished with a gleaming Teflon coat, reference lotus flowers, koi fish, and classical forms, but with immense vibrancy and meaning.

“Everything is pouring into us,” he said, “From our parents, our teachers, society. These forms shape how we walk, how we speak, how we think. But the core, that original purity, remains somewhere deep.”

Several visitors paused at a large charcoal canvas by Rajiv Malayil from Calicut, Kerala. The painting depicted a surreal self-portrait, part clown, part monk. “There’s a joker in me,” he said simply. “I prefer making children happy. They express everything. Adults, not so much.” Rajiv began painting in 2019; his work has since travelled to Dubai and Berlin.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad-based Narasimha Goud stood by hyper-realist ballpoint sketches and dreamlike paintings. Drawing since Class II, he now works in pencil, acrylic, poster colour, and pen. “There’s nothing ordinary about these colours,” he said. “People don’t attempt these combinations. But nature doesn’t discriminate. In the end, water takes every colour.”

The festival runs till April 6 and showcases over 3,000 artworks by more than 250 artists from across India.