UAE: Meet 6-year-old artist who 'doesn't know fear', youngest at RAK Arts Festival 2025
When Nithya Saathvika Samavedam and her father submitted their art proposals to showcase at the Ras Al Khaimah Art Festival, their family was expecting the architect by trade to be accepted. To everyone's surprise, only one was chosen, and it was not the professional artist - it was their six-year-old daughter.
Nithya's artwork was selected as part of the Student Category for the 13th edition of the RAK Arts Festival 2025, which is open to current students in grades K-12. According to festival organisers, the grade 1 student was the youngest artist to have her work exhibited this year.
Nithya's twin brother, Arjun, also applied for the festival along with his sister and father. Though his interest lies more in sports activities such as cricket, he occasionally would sit with his twin sister and let his creativity flow.
Nithya's process involves doing multiple works with different colors, her father, Krishna Kanth, told Khaleej Times, 'All these colors are coming from her memory. Then I realised that this particular series of work relates more to this year's [festival] theme memory.
How it began
Nithya's passion for the arts arose when she first put pen to paper at just two years old and began drawing anything that she could think of — houses, owls, trees, and even portraits of people. Starting with watercolors because of their versatility, Nithya later explored other artistic mediums, such as crayons, pencils, and acrylic paints.
When the twins were younger, their house walls were their canvas. 'We dedicated our whole house walls to them,' Krishna said. 'That's the best canvas, because they still haven't developed any sense of where not to paint on.'
Krishna added that when he was younger, he never got that kind of exposure to the arts. He said that especially since he is from India, where it is expected for most people to be a doctor or an engineer, that kind of exposure is not common.
With arts, he continued, 'you develop a taste for life and everything, a taste in everything and only that comes when you learn art. At least there's an understanding. I don't know if she'll be an artist later or not. But she'll have to get that exposure now. Then she'll make an educated guess.'
'Knows no fear'
Nithya also 'doesn't know fear,' according to Krishna, when it comes to choosing and painting on a canvas. Her father recalled a time when the security guard of their building was throwing out a white cardboard box, but Nithya stopped him because she saw potential in using that as her next painting.
Nithya's family almost missed a milestone in her artistic journey. When she submitted her artwork to the RAK Fine Arts Festival, they were unaware that it had been accepted. They overlooked the email confirming her selection, and it wasn't until months later after traveling to India in the summer that they received a call asking why they hadn't responded.
Only then did they realise the news they had nearly missed: Nithya's painting had been chosen for the festival.
Her father, overcome with joy, couldn't believe that his daughter's creativity had earned her a spot among other young and talented artists. Nithya's mother, Kathyayani said, 'It's a great feeling. If that can motivate her to do more, I'll be more than happy.'
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