New art hub focuses on emerging art from India, subcontinent

An incubator to mentor and nurture emerging artists to reach their potential besides acting as a one stop point for all matters related to new art is what the 'Egg Art Studio', which opened here recently, promises to be.
"When you come to a gallery like ours you will get different visions and different ideas of what art is because it has been picked up on a certain evaluated value," says Amrita Verma who co-founded the new art space in the heart of the city with Tavleen Akoi Gill.
The duo is enthusiastic about the "new space" where the plan is to display art from emerging artists from across India and the subcontinent besides hosting a series of talks, workshops and interactive art projects.

Its inaugural exhibition titled "Genesis-The Veil" is divided into two sections -- art from Maldives apart from a host of artists from India and the subcontinent.
Akoi-Gill who has a great grand aunt in Amrita Sher-Gil, has seen first hand some historic art.
"Amrita was my father's older cousin. She was such a courageous woman and has always been an inspiration to me. I wanted to have a space in the city where anybody can come in and explore art," says Akoi-Gill.

The inauguration of the 5000 square foot basement studio saw a live painting by Tibetan artist Tashi Norbu. "Often Tibetan art is associated with traditional tantric art but Norbu uses bright colours and presents a very cutting edge contemporary touch to it," says Varma.

Varma who has a background as an arts advisor, critic and writer, besides being a director of an art advisory evaluation of art works is paramount for both the artist and the buyer.
"Not everybody who calls himself an artist is capable of producing good art. And just because it is emerging does not mean the art can be anything and everything. Unfortunately there are not many evaluators in the country. For buyers of art it is important that the artworks are properly evaluated. This helps in building a track record strong for the artists," says Varma.
For collecting art the duo says it travelled extensively,

and in the process discovered "great finds".
"We were in Gujarat when we got to know about the last unfinished painting of Raja Ravi Varma which was lying in a decrepit state so we followed the trail and went to Kerala and managed to trace it. The Egg Art Studio donated money for it to be restored by the ASI and now the painting lies in the Palace in Kerala," says Varma.
While the inaugural showcases 20 artists from India and abroad, the studio is planning to include more.
"There is so much emerging art in the country. For example you will be amazed to see the tribal contemporary art. It is not just about the dots and dashes that people make you to believe it to be. For eg we have one tribal sculptor from the tribal belt of Karna in Madhya Pradesh who uses teak wood to the texture and is very contemporary," says Varma.

Among the international artists is Iranian artist Hojan Amani who is famed for his angel-series of works, which combines calligraphy and collage work.
Other selected artists exhibiting in "Genesis: The Veil" include Anoop Kamath, Ritu Kamath, Nikhel Mahajan, Rajiv Kumar, Saurabh Narang, Atul Bakshi, Shampa Sircar Das from Delhi), Fanil Pandya, Yogesh Mahida and Ketan Amin from Baroda), Manoj Dwivedi (Madhya Pradesh), Natalia Natasha Maryenko (Ukraine- Goa), Raj Lalwani (Mumbai), Shijo Jacob (Kerala), Ushmita Sahu (Shanti Niketan) Venugopal VG (Bengaluru) and Vipul Prajapati (Puducherry- Ahmedabad).