IF there are any notions of Indian paintings being 'all about elephants and processions', Rekha Thadani wants to dispel them straight away.
A long-time art lover, Thadani found her mission when she moved from London to Bangalore two years ago and 'discovered' the work of artist Prithvi Soni, who is known for his huge oils of rural India. She began promoting his work and gradually took on more artists at Rekha & Rekha, the gallery which she founded with fellow collector Rekha Chaba.
The timing of her venture was fortuitous. It paralleled a worldwide surge of interest in contemporary Indian art, buoyed in part by a booming economy in India.
Similarly Noel Rands, a consultant with Gallery 7, 'fell under the spell' of Indian contemporary art during the years he lived in Bombay during the 1980s.
The success of Christie's first auction in India in 1987 'astounded people, and artists started falling over themselves to get in', he said.
Rands attributed the growing commercial success of contemporary Indian art to its high quality - and the international exposure that it is finally getting.
'The country is opening up, Indian works are starting to appear everywhere, and it takes a few people who are courageous enough to start showing it outside to push it along,' he said.
