Post pandemic, city artists see life in a new dimension

Artist Akshayaa Selvaraj feels that after the normalisation of lifestyle changes created by COVID, there was a huge adaptation and learning to shape art presentable and reachable through the parameters and the vibe of the community in the online world.

“Much of the art fairs and galleries opened out to provide virtual experiences in the comfort of home. There was wide accessibility and awakening of the creativity nerves to both adults and kids as many of them had the accessibility to try and learn the art through a multitude of resources online such as YouTube art channels with the increasing demand of individual online art courses at the comfort of their homes,” says Akshayaa.

Some of the universities also offered a few online courses in art and the art learning platforms grew exponentially in the last 1.5 years.

“This is a very huge opportunity and accessibility for both the artists and the community as it bridged the gap between language and distance. It also cultivated mindful gifting as I had one of my clients choosing to gift paintings as the regular gift shops were shut off. And also to mention about the choice of creating handmade gifts and opening up to selling online through various social media platforms had been positively normalised too,” she adds.

At the same time, this was a huge challenge to many of the traditional artists who are used to seeing the faces of the art lovers and working on in their presence.

“There is a challenge to learn quickly and adapt to the ways of the online community and social media working methods which poses a limitation for many and there is the exploitation of artists too in bridging this gap. Positively there are huge changes and adaptation to learning and experiencing art made possible and accessible to everyone but there needs to be some awareness and mindfulness of the limitations too that can come up with the online world,” remarks Akshayaa.

Art post-COVID has given a new perspective to boldly attempting the artist’s feelings. Padma Malini Soman, another artist from the city, chips in, “COVID did make us see life in a new dimension. Art is a part of it. I got time to work on the vintage canvas postcard, experiment with colours, concepts and saw people coming forward to use postcards more during the COVID times. I have come across people who could not visit each other due to the lockdown restrictions and asking me to draw and send a handwritten postcard to their loved ones. They also pushed and made me draw things I would not have drawn which was a big boost to my learning. Also, I got to participate in the online drawing community to learn more about figurative drawing, portrait drawing and cartoon portrait drawing. I saw people appreciate and turn to art.”