Date:03/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/03/stories/2009070350710200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Manga power here too

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Mangas, Japan’s cult comics, will find a resonance here with an art exhibit titled Girl Power!, which begins on July 4 at the Oxford Book Store in Jayanagar.

The exhibit will feature the works of budding artist Ragini Srikrishna, a class IX student of Sri Kumaran’s Children’s Home. She has been practising art for three years and enjoys painting landscapes, still life and young people on oil and acrylic.

Girl Power! is an acrylic series that draws from the Japanese manga. Ragini’s specific interest in manga was triggered by the drawing style of masters such as Osamu Tezuka and Machiko Hasegawa and women artists such as Satomi Ikezaw. “I have been reading many manga comics lately,” she said. Her experience touring the Manga Museum in Kyoto was the inspiration behind Girl Power!

Through this project, Ragini aims to create art that not only empowers girls but also encourages both boys and girls to appreciate each other as team players. “Girls and boys should enjoy the same status. It is not fair that we do not enjoy the same opportunities,” she said.

Some of the paintings are for sale and half the proceeds will be donated to FAME India, a non-profit charitable trust focused on educating and training children and young adults with developmental disability, as well as those with cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy.