Shuvaprasanna surrounded by some artists paints posters for Studio 21 Art Mela on Wednesday. Picture by Bishwarup Datta

Artists are putting up streamers and pasting patterned silver foil on the windows of Studio 21 at 17L Dover Terrace on Wednesday for the art mela on the lines of Santiniketan’s Nandan Mela that begins there at 3pm on Friday. Shuvaprasanna has already painted some posters that the artists are putting up. Some of the big names who are participating are Ganesh Pyne, Jogen Chowdhury, Suhas Roy, Lalu Prosad Shaw, Samir Aich and Jaya Ganguly, besides 30 other artists from Bengal.

It is going to be a multidisciplinary affair and apart from eminent as well as young artists, litterateurs and musicians are expected to participate in this fair. It is aimed at releasing art from the shackles of the market that has made it inaccessible to the common man. At this mela, outside the gallery system, work will be available at affordable prices — anywhere from Rs 500 to Rs 25,000. For the first time, Pyne will exhibit saras or earthen platters he has painted.

Rakhi Sarkar, the director of CIMA Gallery, who is organising the mela along with Art & Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organisation that provides funding and scholarships, said the fair is a “silent protest against commercialisation of art. It was initiated by artists. There will be some spirited work here. At one time middle-class people, professors and bankers could afford to buy Jamini Roy. But in the last 15 years art had gone beyond the reach of the cognoscenti.”

Studio 21 Art Mela will be held once or twice every year, and each year an effort will be made to attract a new group of people. This time only artists from Bengal are participating.

Studio 21 Art Mela will be held once or twice every year, and each year an effort will be made to attract a new group of people. This time only artists from Bengal are participating, although the works of folk and tribal artists from Madhya Pradesh will also be there. Chandrabindoo will perform on Sunday.

Students of Rabindra Bharati University, Kala Bhaban and practitioners at Lalit Kala Akademi will join with ceramics, graphics and sculpture. Among them are Dipankar Karmakar, Tridib Bera, Srikant Paul, Chandrima Roy, Santanu Chakrabarty and Jayashree Basak.

Printmaker Ramen Kastha, painter Ashok Mallik, sculptor Bimal Kundu, terracotta sculptor Shyamal Roy and Sourabh Basu were present at Studio 21 on Wednesday. Kastha said he will exhibit paintings and prints and pen-and-ink drawings.

Mallik will present pen-and-ink drawings with a touch of humour, Kundu small bronze heads, Basu masks and Roy watercolours and painted terracotta sculpture. Kundu plans to make likenesses of visitors with a sealing compound. Suman Chowdhury will create instant caricature portraits.