Artist with a difference

It is often said that if you follow your passion, success will follow you. Who better than Bhavna Kakar to vouch for it, having won the Arts Entrepreneur of the Year Award from Young FICCI Ladies Organisation? Kakar, founder and director at Latitude 28, which she opened in 2010, has been giving a platform to the young contemporary artists for years to showcase their works.

“There’s no fixed pattern of art that I have shown in the gallery. I have shown modern art and have also worked with ample of senior artists such as Anupam Sood, and worked with young cutting-edge practising artists working with new media, doing installations, artist who do sustainable art, sculpture and bronze art,” she says.

Falling in love with art did not happen suddenly for Kakar. Her interest dates back to her teenage years when she explored her artistic side through painting. “I used to draw as a child and my parents always supported me despite me showing more inclination towards art instead of studies. In fact, they used to take pride that I was artistic and always encouraged me. This passion intensified and I decided to study fine arts in college (painting) and went ahead to do Masters in Art History.”

Despite studying art and being a painter, she was not keen to become an artist. “My career took a turn after I completed my Masters; because it was then I realized that I don’t want to continue painting. I liked the art and skill but I liked organising things and writing.”

As a curator, her journey began in 2005. Her first show took place in Delhi with her classmates from Government College of Arts, Chandigarh, where she did her Bachelors. It was a group of friends, she says, who inspired her to curate a show for them. “The contemporary art exhibition was called ‘Team Unteamed’ that gave a platform to a group of artists to showcase their works,” she says.

Soon, she did her second show with a debutante artist from Baroda, where she pursued her Masters, and since then, there was no looking back. The shows kept taking place and she continued curating them and also worked with some of the known names, such as Vibha Galhotra, Sakshi Gupta and Prajakta Potnis, to name a few.

Despite an award in her hand, going forward, Kakar wants to continue her passion and change the notion that people have about gallery owners. “Earlier people used to think that just because you have money, you can be a gallery owner. I want to change that because I don’t want to be just a gallery owner. I come from a different background and have studied art, know art and also run a magazine as well,” she says.