Trigger Warning
Mother daughter duo Sujata Tibrewala and Pankhuri Kohli will be showing some of their thought provoking artworks for a Winter Art & Crafts Fair organized by American multinational and technology company, Intel, in Santa Clara, California on November 29, 2016. The event encourages Intel employees to display their creative talents and brings together a unique shopping experience with innovative products put up for sale. The artists plan to send the proceeds from the sale of their artworks to benefit West Valley Community Services, Inc. a non-profit agency that has been providing assistance to people in Santa Clara county who need housing and financial aid.
Ms Tibrewala, who is an employee at Intel, took it as a perfect opportunity to display her art and try to help the community through a philanthropic effort. The event is also special to Ms Tibrewala as her daughter and budding artist, Pankhuri Kohli will also be displaying some of her paintings. Ms Kohli, a high school senior student, is an occasional painter and treats art as an engaging hobby. While she may have inherited the talent by her artist mother, her paintings display an individualistic streak and seasoned maturity. Ms Kohli almost resonating the effervescence of youth in her artworks often uses bright pop colors in her paintings. Her subjects too very often veer around the cobwebs of millennial life. In one of the paintings Ms Kohli shows a young woman trapped in a cuboid as social media signage are scattered all around her. The painting masterfully showcases how the trappings of social media peer pressure often shape our contemporary lives. Yet another painting shows a young girl fraught over the vain idea of beauty as propagated in popular media as logos of various beauty brands and glossy magazines scream in the background. Almost with a genius stroke of her brush, the artist busts the myth of ‘perfect beauty,’ as pushed by mainstream media.
The emerging artist effortlessly glides between serious to fun as another of her to-be-featured artworks is a happy portrait of her mother and herself. Yet another one shows a young woman painted standing backwards. Without seeing the face, the portrait is that of a happy girl, as butterflies — the immediate reminder of youth and restless energy adorn the painting.
Artist Sujata Tibrewala too will be displaying some of her most treasured works at the fair. One of her paintings titled ‘A journey to the Sun,’ is a blissful reminder of the fact that earth serves as a happy solace for humans. The artist imagines a foray to the space where she is saved in a spaceship by a matronly figure and sees millions of volcanoes erupting in the sun. She imagines how minuscule human existence is in front of the fiery powers of the universe.The painting is a strong reminder to cherish and save planet Earth that harbors countless precious lives.
Both the artists display an exceptional story telling power through the medium of paintings and hope to be back for more such meaningful endeavors.