VIJAYAWADA: Vijayawada Art Society, which was created immediately after the State’s bifurcation to promote artists from Andhra Pradesh to compete with their Telangana counterparts, and has 117 painters, is to get a shot in the arm from the government to bring it out of financial distress.
Alluri Ram Babu, who is the president of Vijayawada Art Society and has also won several national awards for his paintings, said, “We have been facing a few problems financially, but we have conducted a lot of workshops and competitions in the past two years. Though most of the venerated artists have gone to Telangana after the split, we are trying to give run for their money.”
“This year, the workshops we conducted on Ugadi and August 14 were attended by Deputy Speaker Mandali Buddha Prasad and financed by Language and Culture department. They appreciated what we did. They also said that the government would support us in such initiatives.”
Vizai Bhaskar, Director, Language and Culture department, said, “We will provide patronage and all other kind of help to artistic endeavours like these. After bifurcation, we need to develop organisations like Vijayawada Art Society to attain an identity of our own.”
S Srinivas, another national awardee who is also the General Secretary of the organisation, said, “Our motto is to promote art and art-culture. Our goal is to promote art in the State. We are going to create a cultural identity of our own to stand against that of Telangana.”