Deft strokes, breath-taking colour palettes and an outpouring of creativity were the hallmarks of Chitrashaala 2024, an annual art residency held near scenic Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. The setting proved, if at all it was required, that art is a bridge between cultures, civilizations and perspectives.
He painted like a man possessed – long, sweeping strokes – looking up occasionally to embrace the eternal mountains that reared on the horizon. In two days, artist Sangiam Yarangsee, from North Thailand, had created 15 canvases at Chitrashaala 2024, an international art residency held at juSTa Birding Resort & Spa near Dharamshala.
A total of 45 artists (Indian and international) gathered for the annual art residency, hosted by the luxury boutique hotel, located a 30-minute drive away from Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh. Indeed, it was an ideal setting for Chitrashaala, an art fete where artists are invited and hosted for a week at any one of 22 juSTa Hotels & Resorts in India, to create monumental canvasses that are then displayed at juSTa hotels across the country.
This is a destination where the snow- dusted Himalayas spook the skies and the landscape is threaded by streams and waterfalls. On our first day, the wrap-around vistas of the soft, moulded Dhauladhar range that unravelled beyond our resort, took our breath away. So did the first sight of the canvasses that had been propped on easels in a vast hall-like space. There, artists sat absorbed in an alternate reality that they had conjured with their paint brushes that moved like magic wands across the canvas.
Amal Nasr pose with a spectrum of canvasses
Their palettes daubed with acrylic paint glowed as much as the paintings that were slowly taking shape – a hill woman with hypnotic eyes; a diptych of the mountains that thrust upward beyond our resort; an abstract that flamed with colour, pulling the viewer into a bottomless vortex…
A woman with Medusa-like hair that seemed to swirl around her face; another visage with shadowed eyes that gazed into your soul; a mysterious glowing forest; a canvas with gradations of green colour riven by blood-red lines in the middle; a bunch of snake-like roots of a tree that seemed to have a stranglehold on the canvas; a mixed media canvas with embroidery; a woman’s face in a wreath of flowers… Creative juices flowed like a river in spate, often coursing along because of the inspiring landscape that un-folded on the horizon like an ancient scroll.
“Since the beginning of time, beauty in any form has attracted human beings, “ says Ashish Vohra, founder and CEO of juSTa Hotels & Resorts, who describes himself as an artist hotelier. The conclave is a joint initiative of juSTa Hotels & Resorts and Deepika Govind, fashion designer and spouse of Ashish Vohra.
the participants
“And art is a bridge between cultures, civilizations and perspectives,” he adds. “For instance, a Polish person’s interpretation of the Himalayas is different from a Thai artist’s perspective.” Indeed, most of the artists we spoke to said that the art residency had been a transformative experience. They felt a deep connect with nature because of the hotel’s scenic location.
“Art is the ultimate expression of India’s culture and art fetes help to showcase international and Indian art. We are the only hotel group that consistently holds art residencies,” says Vohra. “We like to encourage emerging artists as well.”
art
The event was orchestrated by Ms Govind with the help of well-known curator and art critic Anirudh Chari and Avijit Mukherjee. (Mukherjee is a talented artist, known for his delicate and minutely rendered work who was due to head to Japan for a solo show of his own.) The trio coordinated the entire affair from choosing the artists who would participate from over a hundred aspirants, and once they arrived, inspiring them with words of encouragement and advice and even jollying them along.
“ I can identify with the emotions of the artists, “ says Ms Govind. Indeed, the artists call her “didi” with affection as she is very supportive of their moods, foibles and endeavours. “The sensitivity of the artists is very special; I can empathise when they have a creative block and a deadline is creeping up on them. Plus, they have the weight of expectation on their shoulders,” she adds. “Some artists are young and jittery about stepping out into an adult world. Ours is the perfect platform to showcase their work and talk about it. We give them seven days of happiness, with Anirudh and Avijit to guide them,” she added.
The pool of talented artists included Indian artists from Mumbai, Baroda, Delhi and Kolkata while the foreign artists were from Poland, Egypt, Bangladesh, Thailand, Jordan, Malaysia, Italy and Mauritius.
Giovanna Caruso from Italy sat absorbed in front of her painting of thick roots of a tree symbolising creation, and another of a Himalayan Breakfast in which she herself figured in front of a luscious breakfast spread, with the outlines of the Himalayas in the distance.
Rumana Rahman from Bangladesh had sketched a vibrant banana flower, leaf and a hilsa fish on a black background. Hilsa is our national fish, she explained. A multi-media artist who uses both water colours and acrylic, the eye-searing hues seemed to warm up a misty chilly morning.
Suman Das, an artist from Kolkata, displayed his canvas daubed in gradations of grey, blues, greens and in the centre were red vertical lines which he said could be interpreted as human intervention in a natural landscape. Or could it be a representation of a hilltop temple in the distance which at night glowed with an other-worldly red light?
Tomasz Wiktor, a Polish painter displayed two portraits of ‘people he had met in imagination,’ as he said. One face was blurred, in the other, the eyes were arresting. The portraits were inspired by the fact that people in India are happy to have eye contact, he explained. “Art is happier here,” he added. A sculptor who paints occasionally, Tomasz observes that Indian art is very detailed and the colours are very vibrant.
Dr Nagat Farouk from Egypt is an unassuming award-winning visual artist who has exhibited her work in Egypt as well as internationally and her canvasses are held in private collections in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Dr Farouk’s muse are women in folk lore and in ancient Egypt and she is also inspired by folk art. Indeed, her body of work – mixed media and embroidery on canvas – reveals a world of ancient symbols.
She and other Egyptian artists did not know each other personally when they arrived but forged a lasting relationship with each other. “My art reflects my state of mind,” said Mariam Hagar, a young Egyptian artist who confessed that she had been having spells of depression but felt uplifted thanks to the ambiance at Chitrashaala and new friendships cemented at the art fete. Indeed, art residencies are therapeutic for artists and may well become mental playgrounds for them. Enveloped by landscapes dolloped with colour, the handiwork of nature fills them with an unmatched sense of peace. And so it was for Ragia Belal, also from Egypt, who froze on canvas a sun-warmed, timeless forest scape that she had stumbled on in the course of a hike near Dharamshala.
While art residencies may spawn an outstanding collection of art and showcase the work of a new wave of creators, they also help to channel energy and deep-rooted feelings, both negative and positive. “If there is pain, an artist can reinterpret, reimagine and reinvent himself or herself,” observed Ms Govind.
And there could be unintended outcomes as well – two artists from Thailand, who had attended a previous art conclave, fell in love, got married and returned as a couple for Chitrashaala 2024!
Gustasp and Jeroo Irani are travel companions for whom life is a never-ending journey. Over the last 25 years they have travelled extensively across India and the globe, taking the rough with the smooth; sampling different cultures and cuisines. In the process they have trekked in the Australian Outback, slurped snake soup in HongKong, have danced with the Samburus in Africa, stayed with a local family in a Malay village, cracked the Da Vinci Code in Paris… For them, writing and photography are more than just freezing moments of that journey; it’s a passion.