For Chennai-based Arpita Kothari, an architect by profession, art is an integral part of her life since her childhood. Her choice to become an architect also stems from her love for arts. Though, she has taken part in a few group art shows earlier, her ongoing exhibition is special since she has joined hands with her long-time friend Subirthana for the exhibition.
Works by Subirthana
The titles of the series by Arpita and Subirthana are ‘The Insights’ and ‘The Remnants of The Yore’ respectively. Arpita, whose style predominantly deals with Sufism and Buddhism, says art is a philosophical journey. About the theme of The Insights, she shares, “I have been working on this for about six to seven months now. The inspirations for the series were mainly from the journey I took to Ahmedabad and Jaisalmer. The colours of the paintings were inspired from the havelies in Ahmedabad.”
All the paintings by Arpita in the series have a poem along. “The poems and the paintings have a symbiotic relationship. Some might have been written after the paintings and some might have been before the paintings. It is a complementary and organic process.”
On the other hand, Subirthana, who is currently doing her pre-doctoral study in political science, says she looks at art as a passion and not a profession. About her exhibition she explains, “I picked various monuments from the world and the gopurams of Tamil Nadu as the inspirations. Though these structures are worn out and mostly brown in hue, I have given colour to them in my paintings. My touch to the paintings is that the temples are not depicted how they are now but how they were in the past.”
(The art show is on till April 18 in Cholamandal Artists' Village)
