Local artist Sandhya K Sirsi was spotted sketching models walking on the ramp at a recent event in Indiranagar Club
Sandhya K Sirsi
During her sweltering college accounts classes, Sandhya K Sirsi usually spent her time thinking about what she would draw next. One day, she decided to make a sketch of her professor while he was teaching – a sketch which later found its way to the teacher as a class gift and earned her a sentimental reprimand from the touched professor. That was 20 years ago, but because old habits die hard, Sandhya can now be seen with her easel propped beside runways, sketching models over the course of single minutes, as they swish through the ramp.
For this Bengaluru woman who has had sold out solo shows, revamped spaces with her art and has a support system that ranges from Yusuf Arakkal to Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, it is of little surprise that these rampside sketches are sold for a lot of money at post-show auctions.
“I was born and brought up in this city itself – I am a complete Kannadiga,” laughs the artist who worked in fashion technology extensively before making the shift to art. She says, “In fifth grade, my art teacher made me realise that what I have is special. I have always been designing magazine covers through school and college, but I made the leap to pure art in 1999. For my first solo show Aaramba at the KCP, I simply called up Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and asked her for her support. And there she was. From then on, it’s been and amazing ride.”
A self-taught artist who channels the spiritual ideology of the chakras into her paintings, Sandhya is also the person behind a unique interior designing effort. “I try to infuse spaces with a single binding artistic aesthetic. For instance, for Dr Kamini A Rao’s infertility clinic was a space which needed subtle thought. I made sure that all the artwork turned it from a space of clinical sterility to an expression of the deep bond between mother and child,” says Sandhya.
At the helm of what she calls a ‘very small family of a husband and a daughter,’ Sandhya loves to hum the occasional Asha Bhosle tune and watch an adventure drama when she has the time to. Her quite hobbies are, of course, at odds with the loud beats and strobe lights of the runway shows which she documents with her paintings. She says, “For me, each moment while painting possesses its own strength. When the models turn, that is when the magic happens and that is a time I wish to capture. So while painting by runways, I do the entire process of artistic thinking which usually takes me months in a matter of seconds.”
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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