Wood is central to first-timer Nitu Singh's art works titled Miene (My Own) which closed Dec 28 at the All India Fine Arts & Crafts Gallery.
Nitu, a human rights students in Bhopal, is an amateur artist with a flair for sculpture and religious themes. Her show was a mix of mythological canvases and sculptures in wood - mostly shishu and devas - purchased in local tribal markets across Madhya Pradesh.
The theme of most of her sculptures and wood etchings are Ganesha, like her logo, which is a miniature Ganesha. What stand out, however, are her wooden frames which according to the artist, are a spillover of her paintings. Her themes, which are elaborate, creep into the old wooden frames in the form of etchings.
'My canvases are big and sometimes I cannot accommodate my figures on the canvas, so I put them on the wooden frames. I carve them on the frame myself. Surprisingly, the frames take less time to etch than the canvas,' she explained.
Her canvases, which she slots into two categories, deal with her devotion to God and her convictions as a student of human rights. A series of pencil canvases titled Women and Girl portray womanhood in tribal Madhya Pradesh and makes a statement about child labour. Two of her sculptures, Ganesha with Tabla and Laxmi in Wood drew attention for their freshness and sense of motion.
