Long Journey

After a 23-year gap, Raksha Mehta returns to Mumbai with a collection of watercolours aptly titled `A Journey'. The Mumbai-born artist left the city in 1964 to study art in the UK. But took up teaching Computing in the UK to make ends meet. "But I kept painting and since I was painting only for myself, it helped me develop my work, free from outside influences," says Raksha. Largely influenced by painters like William Turner, Raksha has stuck to the medium of watercolour on paper for the last 15 years. She applied to the Jehangir Gallery for a lark four years ago and this year, finally got the space to exhibit. "It was the right time for me as two years ago I quit my job and became a full-time painter," says Raksha.

She would like to move back to Mumbai soon and paint "buildings -- skyscrapers against black, cloudy skies", but until then "the poetry in nature" dominates her work. Raksha's work has been picked up by collectors like Rajan Kilachand, Rajnikant Kilachand, Anjani Desai and Chennai's Kothari Industrials. Her paintings range from Rs 3,500 to Rs 6,000.

A tale of passion

The Play Reading Forum presents Goa, a play by Asif Currimbhoy. Directed by Jiten S Merchant, it explores the feelings of the Portuguese based in Goa after its takeover by India. It is a melodrama of rape, revenge, murder and passion. The eight main characters sit on the stage, as each actor stands up to read his part. Though it is a straight forward reading session, sans costumes and the usual stage paraphernalia, the actors become the characters in the play and suddenly you find yourself in Goa. If a simple reading can have this effect, why isn't the play being staged? Says Jiten Merchant, "Putting together a play takes a lot of money. This is much more relaxing, not that it's easy for the actors. But here everyone is doing it for themselves."

And perhaps, the inner drive is what adds that special something to the performances of Sabira Merchant -- who plays the part of an ageing Portuguese woman and Boman Irani of I am Not Bajirao fame. "This woman, the character I play, gives me a headache after each reading," says an emotionally drained Sabira, after the reading.The rest of the cast is on par, if not equally good. Parveen Dabas, Devika Shahani, Meher and Nosherwan Jehangir, Denzil Smith and Zafar Karachiwala make the ranks.

Admission free, on first come first basis. On August 21, 1997, at Max Mueller Bhavan, Rampart Row. Time: 6:15 pm.

Art for the masses

The Birla Academy of Art and Culture, in an effort to make art accessible to all, will hold an unique show called `Art Access Week' starting Sunday, August 24. This all-India exhibition will give young artists, fresh out of college, an opportunity to share the stage with established names in the world of art. "Increasingly, we find that well known artists command hefty sums of money for works that aren't really extraordinary, while the younger lot find it difficult to push their way through this `signature-sell'," says an Academy spokesperson. The idea is to offer a platform to all, specially those who produce really good work but are either hesitant to show or do not have the opportunity.

Over 150 works of 60 artists will be on display. And the price range, in keeping with the purpose of making art affordable, is between Rs 500 and Rs 20,000.

The carefully selected works comprise the traditional, including folk art, to the contemporary, in a wide range of mediums like watercolours, etchings, charcoals and drawings. This, truly, is a week for affordable art.

August 24 to August 30, 1997 at Birla Art Gallery, Century Bhavan, Worli. Time: 10.00 am to 10.00 pm.

Soul-searching a student of JJ School of Art, Suryakant has been painting for the last seven years. He has even received the Shri Vijay Pokharna award for the most outstanding work in the 105th Annual Art Exhibition of the Bombay Art Society, Mumbai.

Koham, a collection of paintings (acrylic on canvas), is a search for one's identity. And the mysteries that have been portrayed, again and again, are of life before birth and life after death. It is most evident in the painting where a child sleeps peacefully, as the shadow of death looms over him, and an image of a child is suspended in the air, questioning life before birth, while being guarded by the image of a woman as a mother.

Vivid memories of his childhood spent with his grandmother made him put together a set of six installations. Titled Memories of My Grandmother, Suryakant has been working on them for the past one-and-a-half years. He even went down to his village and collected his grandmother's sari ends and godhadi -- a thick quilt sewed together with a number of quilts -- was born.

August 24 to September 7, 1997, at Mahalsa Art Gallery, Centaur Hotel. Time: 11.00 am to 8.00 pm.

Contributions by Chatura Poojari, Deepa Deosthalee, Anagha Sawant and Nonita Kalra

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.