Depicting Khajuraho in all its glory

Siri Institute of Painting along with Siri Artists Welfare Association organised a group exhibition of murals and paintings of ‘Khajuraho Temple Sculptures’ at Muse Art Gallery recently. Around 45 artists from various genres participated and contributed their art works.

“I am from Guntur district. I did my Masters in Fine Arts from DMS college of Mysore, Karnataka. After my marriage, with the help of my husband, I started Siri Institute of Painting at Himayat Nagar, and we also had another branch at Banjara Hills. From the past 25 years, we have been teaching young students about art forms like sculpture, abstract painting, semi abstract and more.

We travel many times to Khajuraho Temple and after visiting it; we draw sketches of the old sculptures and start working on it,” said artist Shiva Kumari, Director of Siri Institute of Painting. Speaking about her work, Shiva Kumari says “We experimented with different subjects on canvas painting with oil colors, acrylic colors and some of the murals and abstract paintings. Khajuraho sculptures are all 1000 years old sculptures, which are replicating our culture and heritage. It took me to one month to complete this sculpture.”

“I had interest in arts since my childhood. I never thought that I would get into arts professionally, but this was my inner calling. Under the guidance of artist Shiva Kumari, I started it again and I am living the passion. This is my first sculpture work. We all did all these works together to give tributes to the unknown sculptors of Khajuraho. I did my sculpture by using Thermocol based on one of the Goddess’ idol. I like it because of its beauty and intricacy in the work so I took this Goddess and made some changes in it,” said artist, Mary Varchese.

“We all got inspired by the celestial beauties and intricate carvings resting on the temples of Khajuraho. Between 970 and 1030 CE without any tools and technological inputs they have done simply amazing art forms on stones,” adds Mary. Another artist Shobharani said, “I made Shiva-Parvati sculpture, the original of which is found on the walls of Khajuraho Temple.

My attempt is that people should feel the sculpture in real when they watch it. It’s a pride of our Indian heritage so we wanted to give it a real feel. Let us preserve our heritage and reach out to all the people, who didn’t know about this place and to be able to know what our heritage is. It took me more than two months to complete my work.”

What: Murals and paintings of Khajuraho Temple Sculptures.
Where: Muse Art Gallery, Marriott Hyderabad Hotel.
When: Until February 14 between 11am and 8pm

By Henna Mishra