Art paints a stark picture of tuberculosis

NEW DELHI: In the sanitised environs of a central Delhi art gallery the walls speak of a disease that claims about 750 lives every day in India. The paintings on display will be part of a special day-long exhibition on Thursday that seeks to raise awareness about tuberculosis and its dangers. March 24 is World Tuberculosis Day.
In all, there are 37 paintings by 22 artists.The works were produced after an orientation programme for the artists at a TB hospital, which was followed by an art camp. The works emerged from the artists' interactions with the patients they met at the hospital. Like Soni Singh's painting - titled The Spirit of Life - which shows a girl holding a flower and standing next to a door with a red cross and a "no smoking" sign. She had offered a flower to the artist, inspiring her to depict hope in difficult circumstances.
In another corner stands an installation, The Empty Chair, where a white figure sits on a plastic chair with her head bowed and face covered. Several other unoccupied chairs surround her. "With this work I am hoping to arouse curiosity, questions and interactions: Who is this? Why is she here? Can I sit on the empty chair? This engagement with the artwork seeks to mirror the engagement with the issue of TB itself," says artist Megha Joshi.
Dinabandhu Marndi has made eight paintings for Chehera, the exhibition at Religare Art Gallery. Fittingly, most of them focus on faces. "A single work wasn't enough to express what was going on at the ground level. I didn't want to take everything and merge it all in a single painting," says the Delhi-based painter.
"As artists, we're always trying to make sense of the world, and respond to societal issues that move us. A lot of it has to do with concern for human dignity. That is what we're trying to do with this exhibition," says curator Stefan Prakash Eicher, also director of Art for Change.
Christo Matthews of Global Health Advocates says that one can't afford to ignore the killer disease and say it's not for me. "Through this exhibition we want to draw attention of the corporate houses which can influence policy-makers."