When Painting Heals
HYDERABAD: “Art is a wound turned into light,”said French artist Georges Braque. This may sound surrealistic, but that’s what it can be better defined as. And talking about wounds, art sucks up the darkness of pain releasing the same as light. That’s how, many after indulging into creativity, feel relived as if a weight were lifted off their heads. Several artists/poets claim to have felt better after producing their works or just gazing at the flow of colours or the curvature of words. The city is seeing such workshops on rise. Artist Sachita Aditi Sharma’s life is full of twists and turns and now she conducts art therapy workshops for people unable to deal with their demons.
The 25-year-old artist is from Chandigarh. She fell in love with the City of Pearls and decided to settle down. But what brought her from a city up north to the balmy south? She shares with a smile, “I left my house because of undue pressure of time-curfews, demand to get married and do what ‘good girls’ do. It was too much for me to take. In my own house I felt choked. That’s when I decide to leave.” But it was not before she painted the dirty walls of Chandigarh with her colourful graffiti seeking the help from Mayor and citizens.
Later, due to issues at home, she decided to backpack and landed in Goa with just `1,000 in her pocket. She’d sleep on the beaches, take showers in restrooms and finally got a small assignment to paint artworks for a restaurant over there. “I completed the paintings. But they weren’t paying me so I asked them to provide me food and stay in their place till the month end,” informs the bubbly artist. After the brief stay she contacted an acquaintance for some money. The day she got the amount she was mugged. She, however, kept in touch with her family. Her mother asked her to come back. “But I’d tell her I wanted to do something on my own and of my own,” she reveals.
She left Goa, roamed around a bit and continued her backpacking. She arrived in Hyderabad, liked the city and decided to stay back. “The heritage of the city made me fall in love with its architecture. The place somehow calms you down,” Sachita admits before spreading a canvas for us for a brief introduction to her workshop. As she sets the table, she talks about her participation in a sketching workshop at Golconda Fort. People liked her work and she ended up doing commissioned work for Udai Omni Hospital, Nampally which houses 100 paintings by her.
Her art exhibition was held at the open cultural centre, Lamakaan. She was also a judge for a graffiti competition held by Saarang, the cultural festival of IIT Madras. “Art was healing me in a way. I was too stressed with my life. Indulging with colours changed me within a few months. I felt much calmer and at peace with myself. Then I realised that much like me there must be so many people who need to be introduced to the healing powers of art,” says the artist based at Bachupally.
It’s been two years for her in the city and her workshops are already popular. She studied PR and Marketing but found her vocation in art as is evident from the narration of her staying with Siddhi tribals, interacting with them. By now the blank canvas on the cafe table is ready and we choose colours. The liquid art therapy begins. Colours flow one after another and it’s engaging to watch the patterns they make or in other words the artwork you make.
But that’s just a small part of the workshop. There’s more to her two-hour long activity. “People need to stop over thinking. I begin the workshops asking the participants a lot of questions. They begin to empty themselves in a way. Then we have something unique like vision board,” she adds further. The people who come for her workshops are in the age group of 18 to 40. Most of them are students, corporate executives and home-makers. “They go back to their homes in peace. Some of them come back again to repeat it. I want my clients to learn the art therapy and be self-sufficient,” she signs off.
Sachita will be conducting a workshop on art therapy on November 12 at Heart Cup Coffee, Jubilee Hills from 3 pm to 5 pm. Fees from `1,000 onwards