'My first art prize'

As a young girl growing up in Lucknow, India, Ragini Dewan didn't have any private art tuition, nor did she attend art classes. She didn't know how to hold a paintbrush or how to draw a precise line with a pencil.

Then at the age of 9, when she failed a primary school art test, the chances of her becoming a professional artist looked decidedly remote.

However, Dewan was a plucky child and when she heard of an upcoming art competition, she mentioned this to her teacher, adding that she'd like to enter it.

"I still remember the day … my art teacher replied, 'Are you crazy? You can't even draw a straight line'," says Dewan, a Dubai-based artist and mother of three.

"I came home crying and coaxed my parents to put my name down for the competition, which was held on November 14 every year. My father agreed and my name was entered."

Dewan's sudden interest in art had been sparked a few months earlier when she broke her leg. Bed-bound for three months, she put her time to good use. "Those days there was no TV and the books were also limited," she says.

"As I lay on my bed I started soap carving. I felt I was pretty good at it and was confident too. This triggered the creative ardour in me. I also started to draw - or rather, scribble - whatever appealed to me."

Despite her teacher's words of discouragement, Dewan set out simply to enjoy the competition.

"When the painting competition was under way, the contestants were given three options," she says. "I can't remember the other options but the theme I chose was 'returning home'. I created a scene at dusk full of bright hues. I felt that my work was filled with intensity and energy.

"It did not bother me whether I would win or not, I just enjoyed taking part in the competition."

A month later, the results were announced. She had won!
"I was shocked to see my picture as the winner!" recalls Dewan. "It was a turning point in my life. My teacher was also shocked and told me that it certainly must have been a mistake."

It wasn't a mistake and today Dewan feels the judges must have found her painting unusual. "I had coloured using water colour tubes directly," she says. "I did not use a paintbrush and that made my work somewhat different."

Buoyed by her success, she started taking drawing classes with a more free thinking art teacher.

"I liked the teacher because he never forced me to draw the way he wanted. He let me draw the way I wanted to. He did not teach me the rules of drawing - like an apple is always red and should be drawn only the way the teacher teaches you. No, this was not his way and so I enjoyed his classes.

"For the first six months, he did not teach me to draw. I was allowed to colour with oil colours on canvas paper. After six months, he gave me some charcoals and told me to draw. I told him I didn't know how to. 'Just do it,' he said - and I began to draw."

Gradually, Dewan realised that she wanted to do something in design or art once she completed school. In the meantime, she started reading books on art.

Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh were two artists who particularly influenced her. "These two artists painted the way they wanted and not the way the world wanted," she says.

While her parents were adamant that she take the science stream at university, Ragini wanted to do something in the arts stream.

Finally, her parents agreed when a family friend convinced them that she was a good artist. Ragini then went to study at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad.

"There I learnt a lot of technicalities I now use in my work. I specialised in graphic design. For graphic design in those days, we did not use computers - we drew. We had to produce very precise drawings.

"Until that point, I never knew what precise drawing was - my works were just free-flowing colours. But I certainly couldn't do that in graphic design. So I learnt the art of defined drawing," she says.

"Today when people ask what my mode of work is, I don't know what to answer. This is because I don't work according to rules; I work the way I want to. I experiment with various media and come up with new techniques. I work with acrylics, mono prints, glass fusion, clay and enamelling."

Based in Dubai for 30 years, she lives life on her own terms - and wants her children to do the same.

"I made rules for them when they were growing up. But now they have grown up, I do not coerce my ideas upon them any more.

"At times I have felt that I am a jack of all trades but master of none, yet I'm happy the way I am. If I work with one medium for a long time, I get tired of it and decide to move on to another one."

Dewan's works have been exhibited at the XVA Gallery in Bastakia and Art House, Al Wasl Road.