She is just 11 years old and Shayna Vidyanand is determined to make a difference to the lives of the underprivileged. This young Indian-American artist recently took the first step in this direction when she raised US$4,350 through the sale of her paintings to help provide vision to the poor. She donated the funds to Sankara Eye Foundation, which will use them towards 150 eye operations in rural India.
After reading an article about how a kid made an impact by donating his birthday gifts to Steph Curry’s foundation, Shayna Vidyanand decided to do the same with her initial works of art.
This private art exhibit, she said, was the first of her “Making Colors Matter” initiatives, with which she plans to help more and more people with her art. Vidyanand, who is fluent in Kannada, Tamil and English, started painting only a year ago. Her art is inspired from her exposure to a wide range of world cultures and her diverse surroundings.
She studies various forms of art from multiple teachers, painting oil on canvas, acrylic on canvas and has recently started sketching with pencils. The gifted artist loves to experiment with colors in her paintings and is typically bold with it. Shayna’s father Ramgopal Vidyanand said that she has always been a “very compassionate person to the less fortunate.”
