Art supplies for 2022

With more people looking for a creative outlet this month, Amritha Venketakrishnan of Chennai’s popular Hindustan Trading Company has a list to get you started

While gallerists and auction houses turned online in a big way to survive the grip of the pandemic, so have art stores. One such is the Hindustan Trading Company in Chennai’s Royapettah, Amritha Venketakrishnan, 33, who has been running it for a while now, has also been busy online with the store’s activities. HTC has attracted everyone from MF Husain and fellow artists to art professors and students since her grandfather started it in 1974 but Venketakrishnan has taken it further with her inventory, workshops and Instagram takeovers. The workshops, especially on trends like acrylic pouring and calligraphy, have been known to sell out in seconds. Then the pandemic put a stop to that and the store, like most others, had to stay closed during the lockdowns.

Noting the increasing interest in art during the first wave, at a time when outfits like Amazon could not operate either, Venketakrishnan began taking orders herself. “I was the only one who could probably access the store,” she recalls, describing how she would take home supplies and deliver them to customers who lived within a five-kilometre radius. She also used the extra time to expand the business and to focus on social media. “Live at 5” on their Instagram page was a series of collaborations with well-known artists, including The Hindu’s cartoonist, Keshav Venkataraghavan. “Honestly, it was just mesmerising,” she says, referring to his watercolour skills. “It’s great to see the finished artwork, but usually no one ever sees the process up close.”