An art-felt year for Visakhapatnam – Nivedita Ganguly and Aishwarya Upadhye,THE HINDU

The year 2018 will be remembered by artists and art lovers alike because the city exploded with art shows, crafts workshops, exhibitions and even the region’s first art and crafts hotel!

The Fine Arts Department of Andhra University ushered in 2018 witha visual art fest ‘Artistique – 18’. There was a kaleidoscope of colours, thoughts and themes emerging from the artists’ canvas. And the students of Fine Arts displayed their core strength through paintings, 3D paper art, design logos, caricatures and murals.

Solo shows of artists and photographers buzzed throughout the year. If art shows dominated the scene, the city also saw for the first time a theatre for toddlers being performed by Gillo Repertory Theatre. The theatre group made its debut in the city at Silver Oaks International School with a one-of-its-kind 30-minute multi-sensory play Chidiya, Udd!

Ravi Kattakuri, who teaches at Andhra University’s Fine Arts Department, hosted an exhibition at Hawa Mahal in July this year to promote and motivate art students and local artists. The International Art Festival had over 62 exhibits by them. He said he was heartened by the trend of artists who were ex students of Andhra University returning to their roots in Visakhapatnam. Ravi himself recently displayed his line of work in Japan where he tried out things different from his signature style of a solitary female face. “I have moved to bolder colours. Also, I have been experimenting with paintings that have more number of faces in a single canvas,” he said.

This year was also about handlooms, one of the oldest expressions of art in our country. Weavers gave a new spin to indigenous textile crafting at a collaborative workshop by The Craft Tree. The ancient Japanese dyeing traditions of Shibori and Andhra handlooms came together and artisans of Angara, Chitrika, Uppada, Bobbili from remote villages of Andhra Pradesh infused the tie-and-dye technique to the fabrics woven in the region.

Feeding the art cravings

Art connoisseur and digital marketing head of Hotel Palm Beach, Soumya Bellubbi also said she noticed “quite a bit of progress in the art scene”. She said more students and upcoming artists were showcasing their works in group and individual outings, and there was more awareness amongst the public as workshops on arts and crafts proliferated.

Hotel Palm Beach itself hopes to further the cause of art through its new wing that will feature some of the finest in art of Andhra. It will be thrown open to the public by mid-January after a major facelift. “We need to encourage cultural experiments and investments,” said Soumya who felt more needed to be done to energise the art space in the city. She suggested kick-starting community arts projects through which Visakhapatnam can “flourish and benefit” as a hub of artistic and creative activity.

As 2018 wraps up, there is plenty to smile about the artistic endeavours in the city. But there are challenges too. While existing spaces like the Visakha Museum and Hawa Mahal have extended support to artists to show their works, a well-lit dedicated art remains a dream.