Dreams she painted: Hyderabad-based artist Priyanka Aelay displays her artwork

HYDERABAD: Bordeaux, the city of wine in Southwestern France, known for housing the works of Picasso, Perugino, Delacroix, Rubens, Matisse and Chardin in its museums is also home to historical snippets given its UNESCO heritage status.

This all subtly reflects in the fresh artworks of Hyderabad-based artist Priyanka Aelay, who was there as part of her art residency. She’s the third artist from the city to be awarded this 45-days fellowship which is a cross-residency programme between Hyderabad in partnership with Krishnakriti Foundation and The City Hall of Bordeaux. She stayed there focussing on her craft and coming back with her artworks displayed at Kalakriti Art Gallery as part of her series ‘I Wonder How Often You Dream of Me…’

The artworks that were on display aren’t angular but in circles instead. The medium is varied. A series of artworks were done in mixed media with doilies, the ornamental lace paper put on a plate under whole cakes. Buy why did the artist choose the round canvases? She smiles and shares, “These were easy to carry back home. Moreover, I was in a frame of mind to bring Bordeaux and its history with other elements that dominate my works.” That’s how in one of these opuses one sees Frida Kahlo with her thick eyebrows clad in a lehenga and a diaphanous dupatta sitting in, perhaps, a royal garden. Her poise tells that she’s not a commoner, but a royal instead. Priyanka adds, “In Indian miniature paintings one often sees the royal ladies with see-through bodices, I wanted to show the pain that she went through while her ribs were broken during the fatal accident that she met with during her early years.” The artwork is rightly titled ‘I wish to join you in the pain of all that beauty…’

It’s interesting to note that the titles of most of her works are long and in sentences. Is it deliberate? “No,” she explains continuing, “Since I am also a closet-poet, I use lines from my works that open a dialogue with the viewers helping them to dive inside the canvas, deep into the language of lines, dots and hues.” And she does justice to what she says. In another artwork ‘I have known rivers’ she paints one of the prominent gates of Bordeaux built to protect the city from enemy invasion. The work is a mixed expression of recreation as well as politics as an antique chair in faint-green also appears on the painting. The background is of Garonne, on whose banks a lot of wine festivals are held.

What Priyanka is trying to achieve in her paintings is both evident and hidden. But the culmination inspires one to achieve at its finality. A closer look at all the artworks explains that they are bound through a modern fairy tale which flows through the undercurrents the painter has chosen to bind them with especially when flora and fauna appear frequently in the oeuvres. She doesn’t stop just with the artworks, but instead expresses the repression inside a woman through a self video clip which shows her tying her sari in an open space despite the fact that we all know that for a woman to change clothes a private space is very necessary. She shows the violation of that area; a woman’s struggle to adjust in two worlds: modern and old. She signs off, “This residency gave me a lot of time to think, reflect and ponder over themes that I always wanted to explore. I have explored the elements of art back home and in French opuses as well.” And her attempt is a step towards that direction.

Image Caption

30-074-2018: Hyderabad: Shots of Priyanka Aelayand her Work at Kalakriti Gallery (for City Express). Express/S Senbagapandiyan.~30-074-2018: Hyderabad: Shots of Priyanka Aelayand her Work at Kalakriti Gallery (for City Express). Express/S Senbagapand