Creating a world from an object

Four years ago, Anurag Bhattacharyya was struck by an inkling of a curious kind. And when she followed the said inkling, an utterly adorable art subculture took over her life, and so her moniker ‘moonchaii’ was born.

“It is a funny story,” she ponders, “I used to live in Delhi back then, on my own. One day, I wanted to make some eggs for dinner and saw there were just a couple of eggs left. I picked one up and immediately heard voices in my head ‘Oh thank God, I’m saved for the day… it is your turn today’ and ‘Oh no, I knew this day would come but why me… why not him?’ This was from both the eggs — the one that I picked up, and the one that was left behind. I had an immediate urge of putting the expressions on the eggs.”

And Anurag — who looks up to artists Christopher Niemann, Jean Julien, Vincent Bal, Helga Stentzel, and Manik Ratan — never looked back, sharing she had always seen herself imagining the lives and moments of inanimate objects. The pure fun derived from it is a narrative experience, with her excitement only increasing with every project, whether it’s to do with cookies, leaves, mangoe or keys.

As a Marketing Communication specialist in digital marketing, she feels she found another outlet for her flowing creativity. Plus, her passion has invited a lot of cool gigs as an artsy freelancer with a couple of global brands and schools too.

As for mediums, she loves the simplicity of pencils and paper. “I had also tried out watercolours for some of my artworks and loved it. Though, one medium I would love to explore is polymer clay. I have been toying with the idea for half a month now. Let’s see when I get to do it.”

With 1100-plus followers on Instagram, and counting, the 31 year-old has observed a lot of interestingly diverse feedback from friends and strangers. “I mostly follow communities, which promote art out of everyday stuff, art out of scrap, shadow art, miniature art, and minimal art. I am a sucker for simplicity. The art of storytelling using what we do not give much attention to, in our daily lives, is my favourite kind!”

Given her ever-evolving work, there are times she looks back on certain projects and thinks she could have approached them differently, adding, “Especially when I have an animation in mind but I run out of patience and make the whole concept static. I hate it when I do that. I generally do that because all my doodles or scribbles are hand drawn, and animation takes a lot of time and patience.” And we think they look pretty great.