New disability art stars shine at Beyond Limits

Kavita Charanji, New Delhi

AN array of canvases on multiple themes — nature, plants, social issues and angst — were on display at the Arpana Art Gallery in New Delhi. The exhibition, Beyond Limits, is organized every year by the Family of Disabled, before Diwali.

This year, 103 artworks by 66 artists adorned the walls of the art gallery, attracting visitors and buyers. The works displayed imagination, creativity and sensitivity.

“On an average, we sell around 30 artworks each year at our exhibition,” says Preeti Johar, founder and CEO of Family of Disabled (FoD). “Our intention is that once people buy this kind of artwork and the artists come into the limelight, more people learn about the exhibition and the artists. Our hope is that these artists earn a living through their art.” 

FoD was founded by the late Rajinder Johar who became quadriplegic after an accident. His legacy is being carried forward by his daughter, Preeti.

The first Beyond Limits exhibition was held in  2001 with the works of 14 artists. Today it has a network of 300 artists who have either participated in the exhibition  or sold their works through the organization. 

Some of the artists have become over the years established names like Shreekant Dubey and Fayaz-Ud-Din-Qazi. There is demand for their work and their paintings go for a good price. But its for artists making their debut that one should look out at the Beyond Limits show.  This year there were  Pankaj Sharma, Smrutirekha Das and 11-year-old Pranav Agarwal.

Sharma, 29, is from  Kangra district  in Himachal Pradesh. An art teacher at Himachal Pradesh University, his etchings, embossments and collagraphs are a celebration of nature and recreate rural life in the hills.

Tulsi Vivaah

Sharma is speech and hearing impaired. His canvas, ‘Tulsi Vivaah,’ was a mixed-media creation for which he used coffee, water colour, oil pastel and pencil on paper. 

He says he was inspired by the tulsi plant, known for its medicinal properties and of great religious symbolism. He says as a child he used to see his mother in prayer before a tulsi plant. Later, in his village he saw a tulsi vivaah or wedding and thought of putting it on paper. It took him a week to complete the painting. 

Asutosh Panigrahi says it has been a long and lonely struggle for him to gain recognition. He is today the Guinness World Record holder for the world’s largest indoor mural. Panigrahi looks back at his career with emotion. Born with conjoined fingers in both hands, he recalls he had to fight stigma and discrimination right from childhood.

“Everyone taunted me as worthless. I took those words as a challenge. I thought I must do something different from the others. I decided to use my god-gifted fingers as my painting brush. Now my fingers make me different from the others in a positive way,” says Panigrahi. The artist’s oil on canvas work, titled 'Dream’, created an imaginary universe of nature, human beings, animals, birds and so on. He teaches art at the Government Boys Senior Secondary School in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

Mehtab Saifi, 27, who suffered polio in the left lower limb, showcased a subtle work titled ‘Prathme Narjita Vidya’. He has a master’s in fine arts from Jamia Millia Islamia. For Saifi, education is the key to human progress.

Gayatri Gupta is 21-years-old and has Down’s Syndrome. Passionate about art, she is a certified web designer and filmmaker from Bengaluru. Gupta experimented with acrylic colours and digital artwork in her works. ‘A Drop in the Ocean’ shows a creative, perceptive eye. Each drop incorporated all the elements near the ocean, from the beach and sand to the turbulent sea.

Gayatri Gupta is a qualified web designer and filmmaker

Manas Kumar Das’s ‘Cursed Childhood’ brought to light harsh contemporary realities like child labour, air pollution, waste and landfills. A speech-and-hearing-impaired artist, Das is from Odisha.

Sadhana Dhand, a 66-year-old artist, was a first-time participant at  Beyond Limits. Dhand,  who is from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, has osteogenesis imperfecta, an orthopaedic impairment that has led to 80 fractures. But in art she has found a perfect medium to express herself. Her works on display were of Ganesha.  

FoD is now planning an exhibition of artworks by neuro diverse artists, who have autism, dyslexia and ADHD.