“Art has been a hobby since childhood. After we had a bit of work experience, we decided to pursue the same full-time. But Gallery happened without much serious commercial planning. When we started off, we wanted more people to appreciate art like we did,” says Rashi, a commerce graduate and a Modern High School pass-out.

What the sisters like the most is that they get to interact with like-minded people from different walks of life. “We speak a global language through the medium of art,” says Meghna, a graduate in human development from J D Birla College. Moreover, they had an interesting endeavour at hand: taking art to the masses.

“Around 4-5 years ago, art was still very niche in Kolkata. People weren’t buying much. At the same time, there was a sort of subdued interest in the works of the popular names from people in general, not recognized art connoisseurs,” says Meghna. So, in order to increase and sustain the interest, they acquired small format works of artists like Jogen Chowdhury, Paritosh Sen, Sunil Das, Suhas Roy, KG Subramanyan, Prakash Karmakar and Shuvaprasanna.

Secondly, they requested prominent artists to create art works that could sell for as little as Rs 5,000. “However, it was not always possible to get them do that. But most of them slashed their prices considerably for the purpose,” says Meghna. This endeavour went on simultaneously with promotion of high-end art works in the gallery.

“The response has been encouraging. It not only inspires this generation to take interest in art, it also helps several new talented artists reach out,” adds Rashi.

... contd.