The participants at the workshop at Bharatiya Nritya Kala Mandir in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, Jan. 5: Sixty artists from across the country have come together for a three-day-long art workshop at Bahuudeshiya Sanskritik Paraisar of Bharatiya Nritya Kala Mandir in the state capital.

Shatabdi Akhil Bharatiya Shitkalin Chitrakala Kary-ashala, 2012, the first art workshop of the year that started today, has been jointly organised by Srijan Bihar, an organisation for art and culture, and Gyan Kiran, a group working to promote education.

The interesting part of the workshop is that students of bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts are taking part in the event. Besides, professional artists from states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand are also attending the workshop. Dianne Hagen, an artist from Holland, is the lone foreign participant.

Inaugurating the workshop, art, culture and youth affairs minister Sukhda Pandey said: “This kind of workshop is needed to boost the art and culture scene in the city. It’s great to see so many artists on one platform. Bihar’s image is improving through these kinds of workshops. Rapid development has been witnessed in the art and culture scene of the state in the past five years.”

Anand Prakash Mehta, an artist from Bokaro, said: “My painting will depict a certain incident of Gautam Buddha’s life.”

Pampa Choudhary, a local painter who mostly depicts women on her canvasses, has chosen to deviate a bit from her pet theme. “I always take tribal women as my subject. But this time, I will show village women in my painting,” she said.