An impromptu art feast for the eye

AHMEDABAD: Inspiration, they say, can strike at any hour, and when an artist has barely 10 days to produce a marvelous piece of work, instinct teamed with a sudden burst of inspiration is the perfect combination. Fifty-one artists from Ahmedabad and Vadodara got together to put up ‘Art Affair’—an almost impromptu show at Amdavad ni Gufa and displayed two works each in black and white.
“This slot opened up just last week at the gallery and we didn’t want it to go to waste. So we got in touch with all our artist friends and decided to put up a show,” said Ronak Sopariwala, one of the artists. It is also an exhibition of affordable art and the drawings and paintings range from Rs 1,000-9,000 per piece.
All the works are in 10X10.5” size and reflect either some artists’ expertise in working in black and white or some artists’ challenge in moving away from colour and larger surfaces. Varying from portraits, architecture, nature, technology, fashion and abstract, the works are a good mix of personality and mood.
“My works are usually based on cinemascapes and I like to work with war themes,” said Ravi Sachula whose paintings at the exhibition feature movie stills of silent screen legend Charlie Chaplin. Sopariwala’s works display a man’s fighting spirit in the form of a tree, Milan Desai’s works feature one from his ‘Fossil of the Future’ series and the thought process of his son at the sight of an injured dog, Kishan Soni’s water colour and pen on paper present the fashion industry while Arpita Bhavsar’s pieces emphasize the contours and textures of the trunk of a tree. The exhibition is on till December 23 at the Gufa.