Museums promote their works through an art challenge
Seven museums across India have come together to host a unique art challenge called The Museum Art Challenge to explore the creativity of artists. The organisers will share artwork and prompt words based on an artwork selected from the participating museum’s collections in the hope of democratising the artistic process. Vatteluttu artist Adhiyaman Ilangovan, who is participating in the series, says, “I have done two artworks so far. One of the prompts they shared was connection - it is based on the artwork of a lady feeding parrot from NC Mehta Collection, housed at LD Museum. I have interpreted this prompt by showing how a girl is trying to connect with extraterrestrial life. I did the artwork in Madhubani style painting. Another prompt I interpreted was on the theme of lovers. When Akavan said to Akanila: ‘I take thee as my soul mate for all eternity at their wedding; he would have never thought in a 1000 years that it would come true; because even in death and decomposition they are truly eternal lovers. Through this art challenge, the organisers wanted to see how creative the artist can get and how they will interpret the museum art,” says Adhiyaman Ilangovan.
Artist Padma Malini Soman is doing the art challenge to make the habit of drawing every day with topics we never think we could. “It’s like a trigger to our deep thoughts to bring out what you feel at that moment or something from the past. No one has to be an artist for an art challenge - all you need is a pencil and paper to scribble/draw what you feel,” she tells us.