From Hyderabad to Bordeaux, and back

rtist, Priyanka Aelay, was in Bordeaux as part of the cross-residency programme of Krishnakriti Foundation, Kalakriti Art Gallery and Bordeaux Metropolitan and is now back to Hyderabad with her collection.

Priyanka shares, “This series is very special to me. Bordeaux is extremely a positive place with a huge historical background and vast breezy landscape. This, in fact, helped me a lot to explore. Each of my work is a juxtaposition of the Indian culture and the stories that I was raised to and the colours, experiences of my journey to and in Bordeaux.”

She elaborates, “It was definitely amazing because this was the first time I was travelling alone (without my family). I have been to other countries but then I always had my family with me. Europe is definitely a vast place to explore and the place that I went is a huge historical place. So, it was amazing to see their architecture and it was very influential.”

“I did my paintings in the last 20 days. And the time duration was less, and I was able to manage to do only miniature work, which is my style. To have local flavour of France I collected antique papers from a 1921 French magazine, which is a very old paper.

It is a re-imagination and juxtaposition of Indian culture and French culture because if you see the designs it’s all very fancy and there is a boy with wings in my work and it’s a Roman way of art. They see God with wings and in our Indian culture we say kids are equal to God. So, I represented a boy with wings which shows both French and Indian mythology,” shares Priyanka.

Environment matters for the artist, she says, when an artist changes the place, the art work of an artist also changes. “When you change your studio, it brings a lot of changes along, which is exactly what happened with me.”

She reveals her observations of the art scene in Bordeaux. “They are good artists and what I observed is - there you can't survive by just being an artist. To survive they work part time, they don't do full time art. They only work during weekends or on holidays. I felt that we are lucky enough that we are full time artists.”

On the sidelines of her show, she gave a theatrical performance in Bordeaux. “The performance talks about how women are objectified and subjectified. I showed how a woman is looked upon as an object when she is dressed up or undressed.”