Prutha Goa

The man engages his audience with candour and the humour that effortlessly emerges from it. Alexyz, the cartoonist and the fearless activist for any legitimate cause, will wake you up with his wit and a dash of laughter therapy should ennui impede your concentration. The Friday Balcao, an initiative that evolved in 1999 out of the need for information and discussions related to issues in Goa,  hosted Alexyz   on the first day of the Konkan Fruit Fest 2016. He spoke on the topic ‘Goa, Today and Tomorrow’ using the description of cartoons from his latest book O to be in Goa…Today as an insightful yet playful educative tool. Alexyz began with the monumental problem of alcoholism in Goa that shows no signs of abating. The cartoon declares that Goa is a government approved bar and restaurant. The chance for cheap liquor has tourists from other states heading in droves for Goa where the highest number of deaths are alcohol related. Goa Medical College records 300 deaths connected to alcohol

Apurva Kulkarni is a name that immediately evokes a response of acknowledgement in artistic and literary circles. A teacher for over 25 years, Apurva has curated art shows such as I am Red , Bioscope , and, more recently Kama, Interrupted . The art historian with a post graduate degree from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda has furthermore been involved in conducting courses in art history and art and film appreciation in various art galleries in Goa. As a pioneer of performance and conceptual art in Goa, Apurva has an oeuvre that certainly offers a wealth of knowledge and comprehension of art. He spoke of his manifesto called The Manifesto of a Dirty Bomb at Kokum Design Centre, Porvorim, giving his audience insight into the mind of a man who is very much a social activist in his own right and is not afraid to echo it in his work. The 1900s saw the emergence of the Modernist art era, and manifestoes were a much needed aid in comprehending the mystery enshrouding the artwor

Unnati Singh’s exhibition Webotika-I am an Alien and this is my Spacecraft at the Cube Gallery at Moira, challenges the norms of quintessential art and jolts one out of the humdrum of routine. A written text that is part of her painting says it all about the appearance of her work ‘When life is not pretty, why the f**k should I make pretty pictures?’ This is not visually soothing art and it provokes one to introspect, so be warned. ‘Webotika’, a word coined by curator Katharina Domscheit-D’Souza, is a combination of three words: web – denoting the World Wide Web, the web of network that connects humans and nature together, and the web created in nature by the spider; robotic – signifying artificial intelligence, the desire of man to scale the heavens by playing God; and erotic – a much evident presence in the paintings in the form of phalluses, vaginas, breasts and body fluids. The exhibition consists of a series of paintings on canvas; three series of paper drawings: I am an Amplifie

Alex Rodrigues, who is having his exhibition of paintings titled Christus at Carpe Diem, Majorda, sets himself on a different plane from that of his contemporaries. He gives expression to his artistic prowess through techniques called finger painting, and engraving and embossing (nail art). The extraordinary aspect of his art is that Alex has no formal training. It has been purely talent, initiative, and critique and encouragement from family that have brought him this far. Alex Rodrigues has always been artistically creative and hardly recalls a time when he has not been doing anything of the kind. It was sketching, drawing and painting for the joy of art rather than with a professional outlook. However, a turning point came when a dance student chanced upon his works under the couch and asked if she could sell them for him, since she appreciated his talent. He agreed to it and from then on art became his career. Alex was brought up in Mumbai and came to Goa on holiday to stay at the

Achies Art Gallery stands out for its location in the quaint village of Chandor (Chandrapur), which is renowned for its historical significance as the past capital of Goa and for the presence of the Menezes-Bragança House, the Fernandes House, and a statue of the Nandi Bull. The one year old gallery occupies two rooms in the beautiful ancestral house of Celio Mascarenhas. After inheriting a grand Portuguese style mansion from his father, Celio Mascarenhas decided to convert it into a venue for celebratory occasions, and hence the name Grandeza was used to advertise it as the ‘Party Palace’. Mascarenhas is an artist and a sculptor by profession and uses the media of stone and wood to express his creativity. As a graphic designer with a BCA from Damodar College of Commerce and Economics, Swetlana seems to have an affinity towards art. She says, ‘I love art! Having gained experience for 2 and a half years in this field, I am still learning as I keep moving on. Each time I learn something

KitaMika has a childlike quality that belies the idea that you are speaking to a young mother-to-be in her early thirties. This wandering soul has found her footing as an artist and she pours her very being into her art. Her art is an expression of pure emotion that her subconscious captures with a comprehensive intellect. The young Japanese artist has a tortured past that fuels her creativity. Her mother was institutionalised with paranoia when KitaMika was a child and, at the age of eight, KitaMika saw her father divorce her mother. She lost her father to suicide after his second marriage. KitaMika’s relationship with her stepmother was a tumultuous one and she was brought up mostly by her grandparents. At the age of nineteen KitaMika made her first trip to India and she has been a regular visitor from 2003. It is her love of religion and culture that has set her travelling to different countries. ‘I have travelled all over Asia and Africa but I always find myself back in India,’ say

Photographer David de Souza belongs to a small group of intellectuals who dare to live life against the diktats of society and practice their chosen profession with a pervasive joy and freedom, teaching others to follow suit and dare to dream differently. He advocates the liberty to traverse different fields of occupation as he moved from the sciences to the arts: a phenomenon more prevalent in these modern times in India than it was in the past. David left formal schooling of nineteen years equipped as a biochemist, and the rebel that he is, he chose to walk the road not chosen by most by working in an adivasi village in Nasik with the non-profit organisation Maharashtra Prabodhan Seva Mandal. It was here that the realisation dawned that his education held no weight in the balance to experience and reality. And so began the process of casting pretentious knowledge to the wayside. After reading Roman Catholic priest and Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich’s surmise the disconnection betwe

Katharina Domscheit is a German curator and the founder and director of Peppina Art, with a Master of Arts in Arts Policy and Management from Birbeck, University of London. She has worked as an artist consultant and a gallery manager in England. In the first of her lectures in a series titled How Art Can Create Change: The Power of the Arts and Culture at the Kokum Design Centre, she expounded the idea of the arts and culture as a means to transform society in a progressive manner. The arts would comprise of dance, music, theatre, literature, visual arts and the combined arts. Culture is an amalgamation of the arts and the values, beliefs, traditions and ways of life of people. Art and culture together would be represented by architecture, news media, the World Wide Web, fashion, food, etc. A division of the arts can be traced with dance, music, mime, drama, films and literature being categorised as the performing arts. The visual arts consist of paintings, photography, installation ar

Your first meeting with Clarice Vaz will find you a little overwhelmed by the enthusiasm this amazing human being exudes. Her exuberance comes across vibrantly through her vivid paintings, awash with a myriad of colours. As she begins to unfold her artistic journey before you, you realise there is the existence of a great deal of testing, out of which these wonderful paintings have evolved. Clarice excelled in academics but her empathic nature lead her to choose nursing over a more self-serving profession. After the birth of her sons, Clarice gave up nursing full-time and restricted her practice to the quaint village of Saligao where she lives. When her sons left to pursue further education she filled the vacuum with her childhood inclination to paint. In spite of having no training as an artist, Clarice possesses a mastery over her paints that can only come from deep conviction and her love for God. During her early days she produced paintings of the Last Supper, the Saligao church, p

British born Eleanor Viegas taught art appreciation and was a museum education officer before she decided to settle down permanently in Goa. Goa is the homeland of her deceased husband, Nuno Viegas, who was also her art teacher at the Birmingham College of Arts. Eleanor spends her time in Goa involved in the Banyan Tree Project. It is her innovative way of bringing together a community of women to salvage needlework as part of the traditional arts. She is passionate in her endeavour to impart values of living a good life to children through the Ubuntu method. Obtaining a master’s degree in textiles at art college was probably the most natural choice for Eleanor as she had begun to embroider at quite a young age and enjoyed dressing up in her teen years, taking a keen interest in designing her own clothes. She envisions great potential for embroidery and hails its value as a part of our heritage. ‘Working as an art teacher, I liked to use textiles with my students to help them to expres