Shakti – The Power

The Speaking Art Foundation, the brain child of noted Senior Art Photographer Neeraj Sharma, is a committed platform of public spirited individuals who take immense pride in giving back to society through their personal efforts at encouraging the upcoming and talented group of art practitioners, deserving of exposure before the wider public. Also, this enterprise takes upon itself to become the conduit between the established art coterie who are engrossed in their art making activities and do not have the time and energy to acquaint the art public with their latest developments in this sphere. Thus the Foundation has stepped in, in the crucial role of a via media between an eager art loving public and the committed art makers of the country, to provide a platform of meaningful engagement between them. Thus the Foundation has become the go-to platform for viewing exhibitions, engaging in workshops, initiating and sponsoring art camps, as also providing platforms for art talks, art competitions and performance art projects.

Known for their ability to invent the parameters of art around ever novel art formats, this time round, the organizers have put concerted their artistic talents in an entirely new direction, with commendable results. Veering away from the set format of framed canvases, the art is showcased in colourful masks, a recall of the age –old practice of Venetian masters who took pride in exhibiting their talents through creating unique facial decorations for masked balls, carnivals hosted by the elite glitterati of Europe. Also, the mask making tradition has a strong Indian footprint among our folk performance traditions where the characters in the drama, on and off stage, exude their emotional veneer through the medium of the painted mask.

As the aim of the SAF organizers is a people-centric engagement, using art as the conduit for such an exercise, the current exhibition titled ‘Shakti – The Power’, is exhibited as a collective of masked creations fashioned by about 200 artists from 30 cities (Ahmedabad, Allahbad, Andhra Pradesh, Bangalore, Bharatpur (Raj.), Bhiwadi (Raj.), Bhopal, Chandigarh, Faridabad, Greater Noida, Gulbarga (Karna.), Gurgaon, Hoshiarpur (H.P.), Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jalandhar (Pb.), Kareli (M.P.), Kolkata, Ludhiana, Madhya Pradesh, Mathura, Meerut, Mumbai, Nahan (H.P), Navi Mumbai, New Delhi, Noida, Patna, Raipur (Chh.), Thane (Mah.), Vadodra, Vaishali (Gzb.), Varanasi and one from Dubai.) All of them have been a part of this noble cause, engineered to showcase Women’s Empowerment, by contributing painted masks designed and crafted according to their artistic thought process. National and International level artists’ as invitee also took part in this Socio-cultural event.

Besides its pictorial strengths, the masks on display, also convey a powerful and committed message that traces the ups and downs of women’s status in the country, beginning with the heyday of women power in the early centuries, when women held equal status as rulers, mathematicians, warriors, et all. The decline of the medieval period too, has found voice through these painted creations. As the exhibition also holds up a mirror to the dark sides of contemporary times, some of the creations are candid portrayals of the pervasive phenomena that stigmatize women as mere objects, and subjected to the worse kind of offences, including sexual degradation, and as inferior role players in societal matters. Other works take note of the elevated status of the handful of our times, when women have risen to occupy the highest offices of the land, namely as President and Prime Minister of the country.

 Thus whatever, be the chequered details of highs and lows in this journey, this history has been re-invented and positioned into a new format, by becoming the subject of the current showing of masks. Of course the major message emerging from this effort at mask making emits the message that women are ‘unputdownable’ and that no amount of social and physical oppression has been able to crush the indomitable power of womankind.

To give the women participants an even platform for expressing their thoughts  on the subject of women empowerment, the Speaking Art Foundation has personally provided each of the participants with a facial mask cast in fiber glass (13×13 inches) as their ‘canvas’. The stark contours of these forms have now been reborn into powerful outlets of individual thoughts that hold up a mirror to cotemporary society and its woman achievers.