Art movements are not new to Odisha. The state has seen artists group, split, re-group, and thrive in their efforts to carve out an active space for themselves. Such activism has, however, been restricted to male artists.
No longer. In 2008, a few women — some acclaimed, some new — broke the mould. Senior artists like Chitra Patnaik, Lipishree Nayak led the way, and others like Atasi Basu Jena, Mamata Samantray, Paramita Mohanty joined in. Around 15 other women artists followed, and The Art Era was formed. They held their first exhibition at the Odisha Modern Art Gallery in Bhubaneswar on International Women’s Day the same year. Today, this small group has 40 members, and regularly hosts guest artists from New Delhi, Shantiniketan and Varanasi.
The movement was sparked by the realisation that trained women artists were hitting a roadblock. Despite the enrollment of a large number of female students in the state’s art colleges every year, art events featuring women artists were a rarity. “Every year, hundreds of women students pass out of art colleges and institutes but there is hardly any opportunity for them to excel professionally. The situation worsens with marriage. There is so little time to devote to paintings as it becomes an investment without returns,” explains Chitra Patnaik, the Shantiniketan-trained seniormost artist of the group. “We found that it really was very hard to sell a painting. It was depressing at times,” she adds.
Artist Mamata Samantaray agrees. “Much as we love colours and the strokes of the brush, after completing our degree in arts, most of us have been bound by the limits of our family lives unlike our male counterparts who get the liberty to travel and experiment with their work,” she says.
Interestingly, it was a male artist, Tarakant Parida, founder of Odisha Modern Art Gallery, who took the lead in forming a group for women artists in Odisha. The group, which functions under the aegis of All-Odisha Women Artists’ Forum, organises art camps and interactive sessions. The four-year-old group also meets every Sunday to discuss issues faced by women artists.
Besides regular shows, the group has been organising a national-level art exhibition for the last four years on the occasion of Women’s Day on March 8. To encourage women artists to exhibit their works at regular intervals, the Gallery too provides space for them to work at no cost. The group also invites women painters to places such as Delhi, Kolkata, and Bangalore for interactive sessions. “With the immense talent women artists have, they can bring about changes as a group,” says Tarakant.
Art Era has been able to bring about positive change. Members of the group say more women artists are coming forward to work in the gallery and participate in exhibitions.
The group recently held its annual week-long exhibition at the Rashtriya Lalit Kala Akademi in Bhubaneswar which saw participation from 63 women painters from Odisha and outside. Many works at the exhibition were women-oriented — their dreams, hopes, disillusionment and despair. Some even had an autobiographical touch. Like their lives, the paintings made by these women were realistic, simple and transparent.