VARNAM, an art exhibition which gives artists from the Malayalee community in Singapore a platform to showcase their work while enabling them to meet other established and aspiring artists, is back for a fourth year.
This year, the exhibition will showcase 150 paintings from 25 artists and is expected to draw about 2,500 visitors.
Previously conducted over two days, this year Varnam will be a four-day event from Nov 10 to 13 at the Artrium@MCI, in a bid to reach out to more people.
Artrium@MCI is a one-stop art venue that is fully dedicated to the development and promotion of visual arts in Singapore and is located on the ground floor of the Old Hill Street Police Station.
Ms Sim Ann, Senior Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth and Trade and Industry, will attend the exhibition’s opening ceremony on Nov 10.
Organised by the Singapore Malayalee Association (SMA) and supported by the National Arts Council, Varnam (the word means colour in Malayalam) is not restricted to a specific theme and the artists are free to display their creativity in any medium they like.
Each artwork will be of a different style, using mediums such as watercolour, acrylic paint, oil-based paint, charcoal, pencil dots, airbrush or a mix of multiple mediums.
Full-time artist Jaleela Niaz will be showcasing her nature-inspired works of art using a mix of multiple mediums.
“I like to create a 3D effect in my paintings and my favourite subjects are trees and corals,” said the 39-year-old, who is also a freelance art teacher. She has used metallic colours such as gold, bronze and copper tones and mediums such as acrylic paint, texture-based paint and glass paint to create her art pieces.
Another participating artist is Mr Anil Kariseril, 48, who specialises in Kerala mural paintings.
Inspired by the beauty of the murals of the Panayannar Kavu Devi temple of Parumala, the self-taught artist from Haripad, Kerala, picked up his drawing skills during his school days.
He has showcased his works from the first exhibition of Varnam in 2013 and will be showcasing six paintings at this year’s exhibition. “I take about 100 to 200 hours to finish a mural painting measuring 6ft by 4ft. This form of art from Kerala is unique and there are not many artists in Singapore who do this,” said Mr Kariseril.
After the success of the exhibition during the past three years, the team behind Varnam decided to include non-Malayalee artists this year.
Out of the 25 artists, seven are non-Malayalees.
They are Ms Nandini Bajekal, Ms Aarti Bartake, Ms Patralekha Dasgupta, Ms Shilpa Iyer, Ms Kanak Kiran, Ms Rooma Panchmatia and Ms Subina Arora Khaneja. Ms Khaneja is the owner of the art gallery The Right Side and will be showcasing her installation work at Qi@art, a parallel event of the Singapore Biennale.
Said Mr Kariseril, who is also SMA’s fine arts committee chairman: “We received a very encouraging response and also many requests from non-Malayalees who wanted to collaborate with us during our art exhibitions in the past years.
“This year, we decided to involve more of the diverse Indian community and include them in our line-up of artists.”
In the coming years, the association plans to include international artists in its line-up.
The paintings at Varnam are priced between $100 and $30,000.
SMA will donate a certain percentage of the sales to Very Special Arts, a local charity organisation dedicated to providing opportunities for people with disabilities to be involved in the arts.
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