post news network, Bhubaneswar, March 18: “People of the mainstream India are still very ignorant about the northeast region and its people,” lamented Buddhi Thapa an artist from Nagaland. He is a professional painter with 35 years of experience under his belt. “I have attended many painting camps in the northeast region but participating in such camps in other states gives us big exposure,” said Thapa, who loves to do “realistic painting with contemporary touch”.
Thapa and nine other painters from the northeast region of the country are participating in a painting workshop organised by the Lalit Kala Akademi, here. The five-day workshop, christened Uday Bhanu, will continue till Saturday.
While, of the seven sister states in the northeast, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura were represented in the camp, with three artists from Tripura, two each from Manipur and Assam and one each from Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland taking part, there were no artists from Arunachal Pradesh. All the artists participating in the camp will make at least one painting portraying their ‘thoughts and emotion’.
A young artist from Meghalaya, Treiborlang Lyngdoh Mawlong said, “Organizing a painting camp comprising artists from the northeast region is a very good initiative, but I think it could have been better if artists from the state or neighboring states were also included in the camp. It could have given us a greater opportunity had we the option to interact with the local artists of the state.”
He, however, acknowledged the good work done by the Lalit Kala Akademi to promote the young and the prominent artists of the northeast region “outside the region”. “Though states like Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland and other states are much advanced in art and paintings but Meghalaya is still developing in this field and such encouragements will help the young talents to grow in the field,” he said.
A freelance artist from Guwahati, Aditi Chakraborty said, “Attending such camps gives us good opportunity to share our ideas with the artists from other parts of the country. Moreover new place gives new inspiration.”
Jayanta Bhattacharya from Tripura has been an active painter for the last 10 years and has attended many such workshops organised by the Lalit Kala Akademi. “It’s an opportunity to share my culture and tradition with the artists from other states,” he said. “My paintings mostly portray the common life, crisis one faces in metros and the growing concrete jungles in the cities. I watch everything that happens in the surrounding very minutely and those are clearly reflected in my paintings,” Bhattacharya said.
The works of all the artists will be exhibited on March 21 at the Akademi complex.
