Ever since the lockdown started, Mumbai based artist Dhruvi Acharya has painted water colours every day to deal with the pandemic and also to raise money for the underprivileged, writes Shaurya Thapa
As a new, prolonged eeriness fills the world after the global pandemic, Dhruvi Acharya has started painting a new painting almost every day now, for her new series, Painting in the Times of Corona. The paintings seem to echo the current times of isolation and hopelessness featuring everyday people, healthcare workers, and even mythological figures.
It was on the day of the Janata Curfew that she started developing this series of corona-themed paintings. As she saw panic rise in the country and the world, she just decided to paint her feelings. There was no ‘lightbulb moment’ as such. Talking about her artistic process, she says, “It was more like going to the studio which is in a flat in my residential building, to work every day as I usually do, and trying to and make sense of what was on my mind.”
Dhruvi Acharya
Acharya’s paintings are pleasing to the eye in a strange and surreal way. She describes them as ‘figurative but not realistic’. Most of her characters seem to be wearing worn-out expressions in gloomy dim-lit backgrounds, in works that seem to blend the styles of street art with comic books. They usually seem to be from the bittersweet perspective of a person witnessing a world gone mad, burning to ashes.
It’s almost as if she’s painting the dreams of people during the pandemic, a practice that Harvard dream researcher Deirdre Barrett is indulging in these days with her ‘corona dream’ paintings. Acharya who is represented by Chemould Prescott, now resides in Mumbai, having spent almost a decade abroad in the United States.
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One can find her recent paintings on her Instagram, where she’s uploading a new work daily or on the page of her gallery where gallerist Shireen Gandhy has helped organise a digital exhibition. All the proceeds from the sales of these paintings are to go to the underprivileged, with proceeds to charities like Fisherman of Koliwada, and Aangan. Acharya has managed to raise 14,60,000 so far, via instagram alone.
The paintings are diverse in their subjects but still stand for the trademark elements in all her paintings, like the occasional speech bubbles and deadpan facial expressions. Each of these give off a philosophical feel to life under lockdown, but they all start with Acharya’s impulses rather than a fixed idea. “I begin painting with watercolours in a meditative state of mind, with no preliminary sketches or plans or ideas,” she says, adding, “I just let images form on paper, and then react to it.”
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She spends almost 10-12 hours a day on each painting, although she specifies that, “the finishing of a painting is not dependent on time but on when I feel it is complete.”
The feedback on her art seems to be overwhelmingly positive so far. Acharya says that people have been finding her work really relatable to their current lives. Does she have a mantra that would inspire future artists to be productive? Should artists maybe wait for their muse, for their ‘lightbulb moment’ or just get working?
“My advice to younger artists would be to try to work every day, not to wait for inspiration to strike—one is most likely to get inspired when one is working. Strive to build a network of artists who you can share your work with to get honest but constructive feedback, and avoid comparing yourself with others.”
