Delhi’ites have no appetite for art. They can drive down to Bengali Market or Gole Market for aloo-tikki or papri-chaat, any time of the day. But never to art galleries.

There are only a few galleries holding shows these days. Covid-19 was a killer of art galleries too. Even otherwise, Delhi is a reluctant art lover. Two years of Covid-19 restrictions gave another blow to people’s peripheral passions.

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When relaxations came a few months ago, there was a slow revival of art exhibitions. A visit to the AIFACS gallery at Rafi Marg in early May showed an exhibition was on in one of its four galleries. Located in perhaps Delhi’s most prominent area, close to the upcoming new Parliament building, the gallery was a quiet place that afternoon.

A few artists whose works were on display did not hide how neglected the artists felt today, even in a large and vibrant city like Delhi. There was revealing information available from art curator Erum Khan, who had organised the week-long exhibition “Naam-o Nishan.”

She said the gallery had works by 54 artists from 25 states! The collection was to be on show in May 2020 but had to be postponed because of the pandemic.

There were 150 works of art in watercolors, oil, charcoal, sketching, acrylic, and pastels. She said art in Delhi was dying. Hardly any galleries were fully functional or were available to display works by young and upcoming artists.

There was no encouragement from the government and an artist in Delhi had only a few options. She said she had informed tour operators about the exhibition but no tourists dropped in. The AIFACS galleries usually received visitors from close-by government offices.

The artists displaying their works belonged to Goa, Jammu, Chennai, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and some other places. Mostly young but with fairly long experience, they were waiting for a long time to display their works.

Akash Yadav, a young Delhi artist, said he was trained in a US art college in Dallas. His works in acrylic showed Radha and Krishna “Amidst fireflies and butterflies” and “The Golden Pond” capturing “auspicious” fish frolicking in the water.

Khurram Amir, another Delhi’ite, has been traveling to small towns, along with his wife, to look for themes. He found a “Ghadi Saaz” (a clock repairer) in Nagina near Bijnor in UP and captured him and his whole shop, displaying several clocks on the walls, in a charcoal work.

His other work was “Ammi” in pastels, showing an old woman-weaver sitting on a “charkha”, preparing threads for a kota-doria saree in Bundi in Rajasthan, whom he had met regularly on his tours.

A Nigerian, Collins Osemeke, who settled in Delhi, was passionate about painting from a young age and had put up an acrylic work “Confrontation” showing today’s pressures on people, like social media, expectations, doubts, personality, mistakes, gender, and racism.

Another of his works Iyalode (king of women) showed the dominating position women enjoyed in their native country in the pre-colonial era but lost it later.

The artists looked for appreciation, and have put their heart and soul into their works. The galleries are open throughout the day when they have exhibitions.

It’s only a step that one needs to take to enter them; after that one finds the canvases are conveying not just the artists’ perceptions, but stories from their lives only!