What it takes to make it as a young artist today

Being an artist has its perks. You get to share your creativity with the world and, if you're lucky, get paid for it while still alive, maybe even build a solid fan following. Getting started, though, is another story. The field is vast and opaque—full of equally talented people, with few ways to earn and no way of knowing where all that effort will lead.

For a 22-year-old fresh out of Delhi College of Art, Vidhika Roy is clear about two things. First, "I want to make a brand of myself as an artist." Second, "I hope I can bring happiness and share happiness through my work."

And she comes with a range.

At the Bhavan Book Fest in Delhi, she displayed fibreglass sculptures alongside abstract paintings, terracotta pieces, and acrylics on canvas.

"Since this is a book fair, I wanted to showcase some famous authors and personalities," she says. So there were busts of Rabindranath Tagore, Aristotle, and William Shakespeare. The Shakespeare sculpture went viral on Reddit last year.

Social media, she says, is a big advantage for new-age artists. “Instagram works in a certain way, and so does Reddit. I really love Reddit’s audience. They’re very focused, niche, and opinionated,” she says. 

The piece that stood out was her take on Giovanni Strazza's The Veiled Virgin. Strazza worked with Carrara marble; Roy uses fibreglass. There are rough edges, as you'd expect from an artist just out of college, but her handling of the drapery is impressive.

“Drapery is one of those things that even people who aren’t particularly interested in art will look at and appreciate,” she says.

And the process? "It all starts with clay," Roy says. "First, I make the sculpture in clay. Once it's done, I use plaster of Paris to create the mould. Then I apply fibreglass."

Commissions are one way she earns. She paints and makes sculptures, and her most expensive piece so far sold for ₹50,000.

"It's a sculpture of Lord Hanuman inside a cave. I'm still learning, so my prices are relatively low compared to what you might imagine artworks are sold for," she says.

The larger ecosystem, however, doesn’t support artistic pursuit, she opines. “That’s why you find so few people pursuing art after school.” 

So what keeps her going? “You need that craving inside you. You need to sketch every day. You need to have that passion to keep working and thinking of new things because you’re constantly challenging yourself. And for me, art is something I need to do even when I’m free,” she says.