Drishti 2008 - The Creative Face of Arena - Park Street

The Creative Face of Arena Park Street
Kolkata:
The art gallery of Indian Museum of Kolkata recently housed a digitally created art exhibition of Arena Animation (Park Street) students that left the audience spellbound. “Drishti ‘08” as was called, displayed 83 digital art work on the 15th and 16th of March 2008.

Noted artist Bijan Chowdhury inaugurated the exhibition by painting a picture of “Porajita Bir” (defeated warrior). Speaking on the occasion he said that it was an honor for him to inaugurate the show. The renowned artist was extremely impressed by the creative talent of the young exhibitors and said that multimedia and computer graphics have become a force to reckon with in the world today. Being very optimistic about the great career prospects in the animation industry, Mr. Chowdhury advised the aspirants that in order to make a mark, one also needs to be aware of Pan Indian and International developments in creativity in this dynamically changing field.

Atreyee Kar, the placement executive of the Arena Animation informed “our students have displayed immense creative talent. Through shows like this we hope to wean them away from ‘tool based’ to ‘design & visualization’ based approach to graphic designing, a demand often repeated by the industry where these students are likely to be placed once they complete their course with us.”

The show was judged by a panel of eminent personalities in the art and advertising fields. The experts included, Mr. Atin Basak- eminent painter and winner of 1999-2000 Charles Wallace India Trust Arts award, Mr. Sourav Pal- B.V.A., Art Director, Ad Infinitus, Kolkata, Mr. Basudev Mali-B.V.A., upcoming artist and sculptor, Mr. Barunansu Sarkar-Regional Head, Aptech Ltd.

The experts were full of praise for the students and encouraged them to work harder. The professionals appreciated this initiative of Arena Animation and for giving the young artists a platform to reach out to the world.

Mr. Sourav Pal said that the merger of paintings and graphics was extremely good and there was a lot of talent in sketching. He also added that this kind of exhibitions would inspire the students to improve their creative skills.

Mr. Atin Basak advised that the students must incorporate more “feeling” into their creations and that he expected Arena Park Street to encourage students to build an attitude of creating beauty on canvas using digital tools.

Mr. Basudev Mali said that the overall standard of works on display was excellent and that it was tough to choose the winner. Mr. Barunansu Sarkar said “I enjoyed the captions as much as the works and the usage of theme based captions enhanced the charm of the digital output. The students have successfully demonstrated that visualization is more important than the tool used to create the final output”.

Debojoy Chanda of Indiatimes.com wrote: “Interestingly, at first glance, one could well be fooled into thinking that the paintings were handmade. Deepmala Srivastava's painting Yaar bina chain kahan re, portraying a teapot and teacups upon a sofa sans any drinkers is as good as manually painted. The same can be said of Debojyoti Mukherjee’s representation of a pastoral setup, named Gori tera gaon bara pyara.

The artistic ideas too were commendable, especially considering the fact that the artists concerned are not professionals. Chandan Das’ Love without End, Amen, a portrait of Mother Mary, leaves a lasting impression upon the viewer. So does Subhajit Adhikary’s An Ocean of Memories, dealing with the lined face of an old woman”.

The winners of the exhibitions were:
1st Prize: Rimzim Sinha for Is raat kee subah nahin, a thought provoking work depicting the agony of a widow and her plight.

2nd Prize: Debojyoti Mukherjee for Mondo meyer upakhyan,(The saga of a spoilt girl) depicting the erosion of values in our society over time.

3rd Prize: Tanaya Ghosh for All I have to do is dream, a touching scene capturing one of the many moments of solitude in old age.

The popular choice awards were won by:

1st Prize: Subhajit Adikary for An ocean of memories, about memories of the times gone by in the eyes of an ageing woman.

2nd Prize: Sandip Chowdhury for Cheeni Kum a realistic detailing of the interiors of a coffee shop.

3rd Prize: Subhashish Samajpati for Love is immortal a 3D graphic capturing the eternal emotion of love.

There were numerous other activities involving the students which were conducted on Day 2 of the exhibition. The visitors could have their portraits sketched by students and there was a perpetual queue for getting one.

Mr. Basudev Mali conducted a clay modeling workshop and showed how in simple steps one could mould clay to create interesting objects like an elephant, cow or tribal doll. The students and some visitors thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and proudly took home their prized clay creations.

Mr. Ramesh Ruia, Director of Park Street chapter of Arena Animation wants to now enlarge the canvas of Drishti to include students and professional from all over India to participate in the competition next year.