Tuesday, September 12, 2017

When story tellers meet...

Just back from New Artist Fair @ The Old Truman Brewery, London from Sept 8-10. About 100 selected artists from all corners of the world exhibited at the fair; and I am still wondering how I landed up to be one of them....

On 8th morning, when we started setting up my paintings at the venue, I had no clue what my neighbor artists were putting up. Anastasia from Russia, Giacomo from Italy, Arturo from Spain, Hede from Iran, Madeleine from UK, Isidore from Greece, Michelle from China, Bev from UK, Seema from India, ....each of us, the story tellers, with our own style of telling stories displayed our stories on the walls of our allocated spaces.....And so, when the doors threw open for private view that evening, I felt the walls and all corners of the exhibiting hall turned into a tapestry weaved with different stories...greeting people with colors in that wonderland....

Posted by Prantik Sinha on Saturday, September 9, 2017

I participated at the fair with minimal expectations; yet, it gave me more than I'd ever dreamed of. Met so many people...met my fellow artists and we exchanged our views....met old and not-so-old friends like Samir and Subha who came long ways to support me ......met my London based friends Sourav, Tanushree, Subhamoy and Paromita with who I laughed and dined with at great restaurants thoroughly enjoying the evenings after the fair...met Maddy for the first time who befriended me on FB a few months back...met my cousin-in-law Shayak (and his wife Sujatha) who I had last seen as a kiddie (in his baby shorts)...met my school friend Sophie after 30+ years... met my aunt-in-law Kumkum after decades ...met a volunteer who works with prison inmates and was moved by my paintings 'Durga' and 'The Cold Footpath'...met aspiring artists who just walked in to have an idea about art fairs...met so many people appreciating my paintings with mere smiles in their eyes ...

Few moments have formed mosaics in my kaleidoscope of memories -- such as, a lady briskly walking by happened to casually glance at my corner, and then she dramatically stopped short in her tracks to appreciate my work ---or a snobbish gentleman who didn't care to talk to me, yet, came back thrice to glance intently at my Swiss series before he decided to buy an original painting from another artist --- or a Chinese lady who said she felt goosebumps after relating to the inspirations behind my paintings -- or a fellow American artist Joyce who started to dance mimicking the poses of my women. Few words are still ringing in my ears --"happy and smiling Moumita", "powerful paintings", "beautiful work but don't have enough money to buy one", "world traveled through paintings" .....etc..

True, didn't make any sales and that didn't disappoint me. People took pictures and posed in front of my paintings.  Art fair is not about sales. It is about meeting people and it turns out that every person is a story teller...

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