ART NEWS
Enjoy paintings, meet artists online
‘Art Grooves’, initiated by Mumbai artist Poornima Dayal, gives an interactive platform for artists to showcase their works online
Artist Sandhya Jathar’s painting is an ode to the colours of spring. It depicts a green field with blooming flowers swaying in the breeze. The work, oil on stretched canvas, is on show at Art Grooves, a three-day online art exhibition that opened on February 26 on www.pankh.live. The interactive exhibition gives a brief introduction to the 22 participating artists and their works. Visitors can browse through the works and learn more about them through the links to the artists’ social media platforms. Visitors also have the option of chatting with the artist on WhatsApp.
‘A Life in a Metro’ by Poornima Dayal
“The lockdown months have been incredibly difficult for artists, with art galleries remaining closed and restrictions imposed on conducting events,” says Mumbai-based artist Poornima Dayal, who founded Art Grooves, an online forum for artists to meet, discuss and showcase their works.“The idea of collecting artists’ works came to me during the first quarter of the lockdown. I created this Web platform and invited artists from different parts of the country,” she says.These art meets soon became a regular feature, and the collective started including live sessions on social media, where artists shared their experiences and practices. “We had viewers from around the world and that served as a great motivation, especially for the emerging artists,” she says.Poornima is showcasing 15 of her works. She works with oil and acrylic mainly, and her works are intricately textured. The work “Life at a Metro” is a montage of colours that conveys the whirl of city life. Another of Poornima’s works. ‘The Ballet Room’ captures the poetry of movement. Poornima, who started painting at the age of 13, has been painting for over three decades now and has exhibited her works around the world.
A work by Nitzana Bhatia
Even as galleries have opened and life is slowly getting back to normal, Art Grooves would continue its online meets, at least once in two months, Poornima says. It would host sessions with 10 artists and personalities from different areas such as music, food, cinema, who would discuss their creative inspirations. She plans to organise online exhibitions more frequently, too. The works in the ongoing exhibition include abstracts, portraits, figurative works, fluid art, knife art and illustrative to name a few. The exhibition is open to all; it does not need a registration. It is on till February 28 on www.pankh.live.
