Art & Poetry: ARTIST AMIT MAKWANA

YOU ARE A WOMAN
1. Poem by Amit Makwana; 2. Digital Art by the same artist; 3. Painting by Anuradha Thakur; 4. One by Shefali Chauhan

I went to meet Amit Makwana at his office at Borivli to talk about his upcoming art exhibition at Prince of Wales Museum.


Makwana writes poetry and gives life to them by creating Digital Art as another form of expression of the same words. Born and brought up in Mumbai City, the artist is an interior designer by profession. With his digital arts potential I wonder whether he went to graphic design college.


Makwana used to be pretty good academically and hence, despite being good at art and winning drawing and colouring contests at school, he opted to study Digital Electronics.


After working with HCL for a while, Makwana presently works with his brother builder Dharmendra Makwana in their family business. He did a number of projects along with his father and brother and learned designing on field.


Now, Makwana is an established Interior Designer who works with NGOs, designs logos, brands and more. His company is Makwana Designs and he has branched off into Ripples of Art, which is an expression of both his poetry and art.


While Amit has been writing even during his school days, he has been doing it on a regular basis since five years.


So what does he write about? Anything that touches his heart! He writes about his Mom, Dad, his babies, Woman, Romance, Sensuality and more. What interests the artist most are The Tri-colour and when a woman becomes a mother.


Amit writes poems voraciously. Sometimes on a daily basis and at times it takes a whole month before he writes anything. He writes with pen on paper, directly on to his computer and many times on his mobile too. Once he gets the words right, the artist sets out to create Digital Drawings out of them. He creates them on AutoCad, then transfers them to Corel Draw and finally creates a Jpeg image.


The ideas burst forth suddenly. Amit feels very restless and moved and over a period of time he has come to realize that it is his creativity waiting to burst forth. Nowadays, whenever the feeling arises, he immediately puts pen to paper or fingers to his keyboard and sets out to create his poems.


He has a tale to tell for every poem that he has created. One of them was when he got engaged to Kruti, his wife. The poem and art work are both titled ‘I Wish You A Happy Birthday, My Life’. This work had gone on display at the art exhibition the artist had held at Jaipur in November 2010. The audience had been highly appreciative and had been very keen to meet Kruti Makwana after seeing this work.


There is more! Amit’s younger daughter Yashvi (now 2 years old) had been admitted to ICU when she was barely a month old. The doctors had given up on the baby as her breath had stopped for almost a minute. That’s when Amit came up with the poem ‘I Love You So Much My Baby’ and subsequently a drawing to match. The baby survived, of course! Amit’s elder child is Palaksi who is 6-years-old.


Then there is the one on the SUCCESS LADY. I liked this one the best. The title is ‘She Is Waiting For Me’. Amit believes that Success is awaiting him and he need not go rushing around looking for it. He believes that life is a flow and need not be struggled with. A wonderful concept, indeed!


I feel that Amit should give a short write-up of what went before he wrote a poem. This would definitely make them more interesting to the public.


Not that the artist is very keen on pushing his works. He has published three books of his. Book 1 has only his poems. Book 2 contains both his poems and digital drawings. Book 3 has his poems, digital drawings and the paintings that have been done by other artists on reading Amit’s poems. All books have been printed and published by Amit Makwana. He has not sold any of his books or his other works. Amit gives away his books to people who show interest in them. He is holding exhibitions to show his works to the public. As of now, he has no plans of selling his works, unless he finds someone who is passionate to own them.


Amit says that the people who visited his exhibition spent at least a couple of hours reading his poems and comparing them against his drawings. Amit has taken a step further and has commissioned two artists to express their views of his ‘words’ through their painting. The concept appears unique and Amit is keen to take on artists who he feels will bring life to his ‘words’ by being able to understand them from the depths of their hearts.


The artists who have painted Amit’s poems are Anuradha Thakur from Ahmedabad and Shefali Chauhan from Baroda. Amit got introduced to both through the internet.


You can connect with Amit Makwana on his email: info@ripplesofarts.com
Website: www.ripplesofarts.com


In case you want to set up a meeting with the artist, you may contact Nandita Choudhury on 9869571695 / 022-26848022


Catch Amit Makwana’s art exhibition:


Artistic Expressions by Amit Makwana 
Date: November 9 to 13, 2011 
Timings: 10 am to 7 pm
Venue: 
THE MUSEUM,
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya,
(formerly Prince of Wales Museum),
159 / 61, M.G. Road, Fort,
Mumbai - 400023