Bhubaneswar, Feb. 23: The Utkal University is taking initiatives to make seven art forms of Odisha popular in the national and international arena.

At a pre-conference event held during the Indian Anthropology Congress 2015, young artists from various parts of the state painted seven canvases, which will be displayed at an international event to be organised in January next year in New Delhi where ethnic artists and art experts from 40 nations will take part.

"When these art works will be displayed in front of an expert group, the value of their creations will be properly evaluated and the art forms will also reach people beyond borders," said professor and head of anthropology department Sabita Acharya.

Santhali art from Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar and neighbouring Jharkhand and West Bengal, Ho art from Mayurbhanj, art made from beautiful dots by Kondhs, colourful Gond art with a typical Madhubani art like influence from Keonjhar and Ganda art from Kalahandi are going to create waves at national and international arena.

Akshaya Kumar Patnaik, a senior artist from Bhawanipatna, who trains young artists in Kondh and Ganda art forms, said: "The original art work is done with organic colours on the walls of houses. Here they are using the huge canvas and acrylic colours to paint their ideas."

Acharya said: "Saura art form is already popular. Now, we want to inform people about other art forms and Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, is helping us in our initiatives."

Chandra Mohan Hansda from Mayurbhanj, who is creating a Santhal wall painting, described how the artists of his community had created a natural cow-dung-clay painted wall like impression with the hand-made brushes.

"We have also added some modern elements like detailed design of the alpana," said Hansda.

Ho artist Gajendra Tiriya said the central part of his painting is coloured black to represent dancing programmes that happened at night. "As the Ho tribes dance at night, the painting is done like this. People going for hunting, busy in leaf-plate making and singing during the sowing of seeds are included in the art," Tiriya said.

"We want to see that other than the Saura art motifs Odisha's other tribal art forms should be painted, printed and seen on gift and souvenir items so that the buyers will have more options while purchasing our handicraft items," said Rahas Mohanty of Lalit Kala Akademi.