Lenin Dani Raj in the exhibition | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
India’s first global botanical art exhibition was recently concluded in Pune’s Rupa Rahul Bajaj Center for Environment and Art (RRBCEA) in collaboration with the Indian Botanist Society. To match the day of botanical arts worldwide on 18 May, the program started on 17 May and lasted until 24 May. This marked an important milestone as India stepped on the global stage to demonstrate the diversity of its crops through botanical arts.
The performance of artifacts was two by Lenin Dani Raj, a self-centered artist from Mettuplam. In the exhibition, 32 work was done by 18 artists from India and Sri Lanka, all were presented as part of the 2025 initiative worldwide. India joined more than 30 countries hosted by this international program, which was integrated under the subject celebrating crop diversity. The purpose of this phenomenon is to bring vegetable artists around the world together as art and bring together the variety of flora that enjoys humanity and cannot live without.
Adhyagandha’s Lenin Painting | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“For me, Botanical arts is a mixture of science and art. It is about capturing the beauty and expansion of all plants in a way that helps people understand and appreciate them deeply. Also, it is not only about making it beautiful.
In the Global Botanical Art Exhibition. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
His two works received critical praise, one of them also made it to cover the catalog of the iconic event. Lenin said, “I was very happy that I was able to do something that was worth staying on the cover, I only knew that when I reached there the early day,” Lenin said. Specially displayed ashwagandha (prank) In striking expansion.
“I chose Ashwagandha because it has a long history of use. Because it is one of the most revered medicinal plants in Ayurveda,” says Lenin. His artwork discovered a realistic approach, emphasizing unique stages of development. The depiction of the brown contradiction with the deep red and the textured of the fruit, clearly depicted the value of the ashwagandha as a visually captivating plant with a significant medicinal value, with a place on the covers of catalogs and a place on certificate of excellence to Lenin.
The second choice of his artwork by Lenin was one of the most common crops in India, millet. Known as Pearl millet, Lenin made this option due to his cultural, economic and nutritional importance in India. Being a reliable plant that can withstand extreme conditions and even deep roots to control soil erosion can be a flexibility that is difficult to remember by a botanical artist.
“In this artwork, I created a partition composition to show the complete characteristics of the plant by differentiating my top and bottom parts, yet in harmony. The right displays the head of half the flowers, while the left takes his journey from the stalk to the root,” Lenin said.
“This exhibition was a great experience for me, especially since it is the first of its kind in India. I had a chance to meet so many incredible artists across the country. It would be a great start for the creation of a good community of botanical artists in India, and it will also be a great inspiration for many young artists, which tells that it is to create a botolic artwork.”
The exhibition was reminiscent of deep relations between art, science and stability. The growing community inspired by this gathering around the world will not only learn to inspect nature, but will also learn to understand and preserve it through art.
Published – May 26, 2025 04:10 pm IST