Small hands that paint big feeling's

Children have always splashed paint on paper and all around them but the new generation is taking it a step further and, guided by artists and therapists, expressing concepts and emotions worthy of being on gallery walls

- Avantika Bhuyan

Nine-year-old Reyna Shah is fascinated with the work of Rithika Merchant, a 37-year-old contemporary artist known for her oft-political works that interpret iconography from myths and legends in a contemporary context. Reyna, a class IV student in Mumbai, likes to see the recurring motif of the eye in Merchant’s artworks, which offer a perspective on times that have gone by and are yet to come.

“I like that Ms Merchant uses stories of the past to talk about the future,” says Reyna, of the artist who won the Vogue Hong Kong Women’s Art Prize in 2021 as part of the 17th edition of the Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Reyna first saw Merchant’s work at The Art Studio Mumbai, a studio helmed by art educator Purnima Sampat to provide art education programmes for all age groups and skill levels. For the past two years, Reyna has been part of its Art4Kids programme, which caters to the creative needs of children, from toddlers to middle-schoolers. “Ms Purnima also organised a video meeting with Ms Merchant, which was very exciting,” she adds.

Some of the older children have had similar sessions with contemporary artists like Dhruvi Acharya, and have attended walkthroughs at exhibitions of Akbar Padamsee and S.H. Raza works.