Mangalorean Artist Wins First Place In The Country’s Biggest Online Art Contest

Mangalorean Artist Wins First Place In The Country’s Biggest Online Art Contest

September 29: Santhosh D. Andrade, an artist from Mangalore has won first place in ‘ORA 2020’, the country’s biggest online art contest conducted by Mojarto, a venture of NDTV. He won the first place for his painting,  ‘The Storytelling Wall: The Fallacies of Urbanization’.
The prizes were announced in an online event which was held on September 25, 2020. The first prize included a certificate, a trophy and a purse of Rs 3 lakh.
Artists were invited to submit their work under two categories: Emerging Artist and Professional Artist. Mangalorean Santhosh Andrade, an artist from 15 years, won the contest in the ‘Professional Artist’ category from among more than 1000 contestants.
Artist Santhost says that his painting depicts the fallacies of urbanization. “Memories of my childhood comprise of picturesque scenes of Mangalore tiled roof tops amidst vegetable gardens and fruit orchards atop a hill overlooking the Arabian Sea along the West Coast of India,” he wrote in the concept note, “Today however, as I look out my window reminiscing the past, I am awakened by the harsh realities of our cities. India today faces unprecedented growth which has led to what experts may term as Urbanization. What only affected Metropolis’ in the past, today has also reached many a Tier Two cities in our country, like mine. My painting depicts the juxtaposition between these two facets in time. The foreground of the Mangaluru tiles roofs represent the scenes of yore almost being suffocated  and engulfed by high rise buildings coming up right beside them. The staircase represents man’s desire to build and go higher and higher with no intention of stopping – depicted here as a circular staircase winding into the skies above the pitched rooftops with no landing in sight!”