Bhubaneswar-Based Artist Spreads Awareness On Coronavirus With Paintings On Masks

Bhubaneswar: He is an artist and his creations are now dedicated to a cause that has affected the entire world – coronavirus. Meet Raja Kishore Maharana, a city-based artist.

With face masks and gloves turning mandatory dress code of late, the designers have come up with new ideas and concepts to lend a creative and fashionable touch to those. Moharana finds a rare opportunity to showcase his talent and has been appreciated for his creativity.

He is painting the masks stitched by his wife to spread awareness on precautions to contain the spread of coronavirus like maintaining social distancing and others. He is also doing canvas painting to put across the message to the society.

“My wife is stitching the masks and I am doing paintings on it. It takes around two hours to complete one mask. The masks are made of thick cotton fabric and are washable,” said Moharana.

“I am doing the paintings on the awareness messages like ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’, ‘Wear Mask’ and ‘Maintain Social Distancing’ etc. Earlier, I was depicting the culture of Odisha through my paintings,” he added.

He is posting the pictures of the masks in the social media and spreading information.

“People are appreciating my work. This is the real happiness for an artist like me, though we do not have much work in this difficult situation,” said Moharana.

“I want to make more masks and popularise it at national level,” he said.

Moharana sent the pictures of his painted masks to Punjab University for a competition and topped the rank.

He has also depicted the coronavirus awareness messages and plight of the people during lockdown in many of his paintings.

“For COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot celebrate many festivals. Temples are also closed. I have depicted the sorrow of the devotees, Kawariyas and saints for being unable to celebrate on last Monday of Sravana month,” said Moharana.

Currently, he is working as the Master Trainer (Pattachittra) at KIIT University.