RIPE FOR THE LIKING
Just like a harvest festival, when efforts of the year are reaped by a farmer, this aptly named art exhibition presents a collection of great works gathered throughout the year
Present an art connoisseur with a new collection, and they will be wonderstruck for the entire day. Present them with works of over five dozen artists, and they will possibly end up on the literal cloud nine. Harvest 2019, the 19th edition of which was recently held in the city, did just that. It also displayed the trends in Indian contemporary art. This time around, the exhibition also included seven artists who are well known internationally.
The main purpose of the show was to provide a platform to artists so that they could display good quality art at a leisurely pace. The artists ranged from professionals to emerging ones, belonging to different styles. Payal Kapoor, the curator of the show says, “The show looks out for a good quality art throughout the year and then we construct it in six months, just like any harvesting festival.”
Talking about the highlight of the exhibition, Kapoor continues, “The exhibition is unique in its own because I have divided the show in such a way that there are five different sections to it, ‘called ‘master’, ‘abstract’, ‘tribal’, contemporary’ and ‘sculpture’. And each section includes 10 to 12 artists.”
Sheela Chamaria, one of the artists displaying in the exhibition, makes semi-figurative and positive artwork. The relationship she portrays through her works is multi-faceted. She says, “In this particular show, I have displaced a figure with a flute and the figure looks like Krishna, but I don’t call it Krishna and instead call it ‘Sound of Music’ as I feel that the music is something that acts as therapy and, for me, Krishna’s a philosophy.”
Speaking about the process of creating her art, she says, “My regular work is all about positivity that I can express from the art because I feel in today’s world everyone is in a rat race and I show the happiness one has enjoyed with their loved ones or the love of nature.”
Sanjay Bhattacharya, who paints life-like images, presented thought-provoking artwork at Harvest 2019. Speaking of how his creations differ from his other works, he says, “I usually don’t repeat the same kind of work I do. I love to paint. I paint whatever comes to my mind and in my painting, one can make out what exactly is there. I also do portraits and in Harvest I did paintings of lilies and lotuses.”
The exhibition is unique because I’ve divided the show in a way that there are five different sections to it, each with 10-12 artists
— Payal Kapoor, curator