Kritika Mahindra on Building Art On The Wall to Bring Back Traditional Art

As a child, we aspire to do different things with our lives, become the pilot of a jet flight, the maker of another Batpod, the chef of cranberry pies, win a slam poetry competition and so on. For a larger section of the society the reality becomes a disfigured art, much distant from the dream they painted for themselves.

With the advent of digital artwork, people have either changed professions just to meet their ends or doing some odd jobs like whitewash, street food vendor, driving an auto etc. The hand painted art work have been restricted to do shop shutters, or telecom advertisements on highways or painting on the trucks and autos. The artists are now reluctant to walk down the roads because of sheer lack of confidence that nobody will understand and appreciate their skills.

New Delhi based Kritika Mahindra co-founded “Art on the Wall” with an inspiration of pushing forward art of the unsung heroes. She traced such creative artists in every alley and spoke to every person beside the broken pathway to find the redundant artist in them. The outflow that came from it was a miracle. Her art startup helped people from the lesser fortunate society paint a piece of their souls and make a moment of history.

Since her years in college, Mahindra preferred to begin her mornings with the paint brush rather than assignment. Along her college course, the young artist finished various short-term courses—one on art appreciation from the National Museum Institute of History of Art, Conservation and Museology, New Delhi; a three-month course on fine arts from the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; and later a course on “Creativity, Innovation and Change” offered by Pennsylvania State University, US. In April 2013, she quit her full time job to work on Art on the wall.

Kritika became a part of this initiative when she was 23 years old. While working on every single aspect related to planning and execution, it has given her a deep self- reflection and, a means to explore her psychological identity.

The journey has not been an easy calling, as both investors and clients were apprehensive to understand the viability of her startup. The Art industry is often overlooked by the investors. “People do acknowledge and understand the meaning of painting directly on the wall surface or furniture, floors, ceilings, glass, shoes, etc but, they remain apprehensive and a bit unsure of how a particular design is going to get replicated on their wall canvas until, they see the end product and get surprised by the outcome”, says the 27 year old social entrepreneur.

When we look at the coveted aspects of social entrepreneurship, we find healthcare, education, human rights, economic disparity and other matters synonymous to that. But “Art On The Wall” chose to bring a new life statement to this preconceived notion of social entrepreneurs by the introducing the artworks of people from all walks of life.

Kritika held a strong conviction for her art and the artists hired by her. She eventually started acquiring personal orders which led to building a strong customer base. Her artwork furnishes not just traditional forms, but popart and other contemporary formats as well.

We all have to face similar challenges while walking down the same road and this served as a great motivation for her artists to enter this sector and work, as the Founder of “Ashoka: Innovators for the Public”, Bill Drayton stated that a social entrepreneur must not stop until an industry is revolutionized.

In order to be a social entrepreneur, one needs to find, see and feel the problems or challenges or unexploited opportunities breathing in the society. The young social entrepreneur turned this ‘problem’ into her project ‘project’ which subsequently led her to build a venture.