mizo art
Representative image. Courtesy: MiYzone

With an aim to put Mizoram on the arena of the flourishing Indian contemporary art, 14 young artists from the State will exhibit their works in New Delhi from Tuesday.

The exhibition will showcase contemporary Mizo identity as a complex mixture of global influences and valued regional traditions.

The group exhibition christened ‘Contemporary Art’, held under the aegis of Government of Mizoram, will showcase a slice of Mizoram’s budding art practice.

The exhibition will be inaugurated on Tuesday at the India International Centre (IIC) Annexe in the national capital.

Isaac Malsawmtluanga, a participant and education professor at District Institute of Education and Training, Aizawl said that taking up materials, techniques and idioms from Western cultural practices, the Mizos construct their own artistic language by amalgamating them with the Mizo sensibility and culture.

Isaac further added that in the current exhibition the idyllic Mizo rural scenes, Mizo lasses, and local flora and fauna as very dominant themes that the Mizo artists are working with, while using Western techniques and styles.

A small art market and occasional sale of artworks does not stop local artists from exploring new media. Many self-taught and only a handful of academically trained artists, the practitioners mostly work with local subjects and topics.

Malsawmtluanga, who is part of an art movement at Mizoram Art Development Society (MADS), believes that like other regions Mizoram is also part of the global village ‘where things happen at a fast pace and where information and data bombards you by the second’.

The exhibition will run from February 20 to 26.