Pallavi Khare

Self-taught artist Pallavi Khare creates dramatic black and white imagery using charcoal on paper.

Tell us about your journey in the field of art?
Experimenting with different art forms has been a hobby since childhood. I remember there used to be a separate cupboard in my room, consisting of pencil, water, acrylic oil colors, crayons, different types of brushes, palettes, and of course charcoal. In school, I used to make live portraits of my friends during recess time, it was fun. Slowly I shifted to making charcoal portraits and started experimenting with different styles. Unspoken is my first art exhibition of charcoal work, comprising of art work that I have made since childhood, spanning over 10 years.
 What inspired you to do charcoal art?
With time I started getting more attached to charcoal, as I was amazed by the depth that can be achieved using just black and white. My mother used to encourage me to try different forms and one day she got all the charcoal material and told me to try making a Lord Ganesh portrait. That was my first charcoal art work. I only had charcoal powder and paper stubs and it took me twenty days to make it right. I stuck to charcoal after that. I tried experimenting with different papers, different forms of charcoal. I like the intense black and white contrast that one can achieve with charcoal.

What is your style of work?
I am self taught. I know there are many techniques to get the right shapes and sizes, but I enjoy making free hand sketches. I mostly do portraits, trying to convey some emotions to the outside world. I love sketching the eyes. They are the most important part I believe, to convey the emotion. I love drawing hair too.
 Which is your most memorable work?
It would be my first charcoal work, the Lord Ganesh portrait. I had to dip the paper stubs into charcoal powder and smudge it onto the sheet, for every few small line, curve, blotch, to make an A1 size portrait. It required a lot of patience and hard work. And it did pay off when the portrait won first prize at a national level competition. I was 15 then, it was a big achievement. I believe that motivated me to continue in charcoal.

 Who are the art legends you admire? 
Since childhood, I have been fascinated by Raja Ravi Verma. His paintings are a good fusion of European and Indian techniques. I used to look at his paintings for hours I could feel them come alive. The use of colors is incredible. I even used to try imitating some of his work during my childhood.
What is the inspiration behind your first exhibition ‘Unspoken’?
My art talks about varied, deep-rooted emotions in all of us, ranging from joy, pleasure, hope, love, pain, betrayal and suffering. I want to convey all the emotions to whoever can feel them without anyone having to speak a word and more than that I believe that everyone should get an equal opportunity to live the life they want to live and express the emotions they are facing or going through and that is why the earnings of the exhibition will be given to Guria Freedom NOW, an NGO fighting for Child trafficking in Varanasi.