Hyderabad, July 1st, 2017: Sixteen year old Maitri Rangarajan Paul,a young artist, is exhibiting her select drawings and paintings in Hyderabad. The exhibition titled A SPREAD OF FINE THOUGHT was inaugurated today by the legendary artist and art collector Padma Shri Jagdish Mittal in the presence of eminent citizens of Hyderabad. The exhibition is curated by Koeli Mukherjee Ghose, an acclaimed painter and member of the governing council at the Lalit Kala Academy and National Gallery of Modern Art.
Maitri's experiments with ink and pen are inspired by the elaborate designs of Buddhist mandalas. She began to create works of art that imbued her representations of the world with rich, intricate and sometimes asymmetric patterns, to convey meaning. In the works on display in this exhibition, she has tried to capture emotion and abstract thought using this fused style. In addition, her deep interest in marine biology has found its way into her work. The presentation of oceans and turtles is an attempt to urge the viewer to look at nature through her eyes.
Interacting with journalists at the inauguration Maitri said, "I have been sketching and paintingsince my childhood. I try to express my thoughts on the relationship between nature and humans through my art. I enjoy experimenting with new mediums and techniques and try to use them to represent a dynamic, fluid, ever-changing world".
The exhibition is open for all at the Saptaparni Cultural Center, Banjara Hills, until July 8th. About Maitri
Maitri Rangarajan Paul was born to Radha Rangarajan and Santanu Paul on December 7th, 2000. She is a student at Chirec International School, pursuing her second year in the International Baccalaureate Diploma program (Class 12).
From a very young age, Maitri has been artistically inclined. As a child, she made cards, painted cloth bags, drew on clothing and doodled extensively. Her school notebooks were often filled with drawings in the margins. Her talent was noticed by her teacher, Mr. Lester Paul, who guided and mentored her artistic progress in school. Maitri was also fortunate to work with one of Hyderabad's foremost artists, Koeli Mukheijee Ghose, during the summers, learning to observe and capture the world around her. Both teachers encouraged her to explore and find her own style.
Maitri has received certificates of outstanding artistic achievement in school for the last several years. In 2016, she participated in a nationwide competition conducted by Sir J.J. School of Fine Arts and Lalit Kala Academy in Mumbai through the "Small Hands, Big Art". Maitri's painting of a sea turtle swimming towards a discarded plastic bag, bagged a special award and was selected for display. In addition to art, Maitri learns Bharatanatyam and Western classical violin.
Maitri along with her younger sister Sohini, would spend long hours poring over their art works, their busy fingers tirelessly wielding colourful crayons, pasting glowing beads and sequins to dress up a birthday card or make a piece of jewellery. These activities accelerated during their vacations in summer.
In the summer of 2013, to Maitri’s delight, her efforts gifted her with the skill to draw fantastic fantasies of starry eyes, highlighted locks and intense portraits. A desire to see herself reflected in her images as an achiever of dreams, beholding a view from the rooftop and often dressed in flowing robes like a princess of a contemporary fairytale in a ballroom dance. Maitri has developed her personal style of applying visual thinking to her images.
The visuals are kaleidoscopic and dreamy, evolving and dissolving to become a form or a pattern. The language of doodling has been made conducive to drawing almost everything, in a lucid manner, by her. The palette she chooses, is spread across the colours of the rainbow. Maitri creates thin and wide lines, in a rhythmic sequence, not only to imbibe her compositions with meaning but also to enjoy the flow of her expressions. Her delightful engagement with her creative practice has emerged with a fine range of mindscape.
