"What happens when artists are stripped of polish, deadlines, and galleries—and given only time, space, and a canvas?"
Fifteen years of residencies, exhibitions, and artist support. Dolna Art had been building bridges between creators and audiences since 2010. But there was a restlessness that wouldn't settle.
Residencies felt too private. Exhibitions too finished. Festivals too crowded. Something essential was absent - not in the art, but in the experience of witnessing it come into being.
No pre-sketches. No rehearsals. No safety net. Twenty artists, forty-eight hours, and twenty blank canvases.
The audience present for every mark, every decision, every moment of doubt and resolution. From that tension came the name: Blank Canvas. A paradox - emptiness that holds infinite possibilities.
And so, Dolna Art's philosophy found its most distilled form:
The Blank Canvas will also mark the unveiling of something built over fifteen years of practice and observation: Mitu Basu's book - India's first guide to marketing art, written specifically for Indian artists.
For fifteen years, Mitu has watched brilliant artists struggle not because their work was insufficient, but because no one had equipped them for the business of art. This book is the answer to that absence. Practical, honest, and written by someone who has stood on both sides of the equation.
Limited digital prints unveiled at the event. Details on the day.
Blank Canvas was never meant to be just an event.
It was conceived as a movement—a reminder that art is what happens in the fragile, unrepeatable hours of creation.