Beatrice de Fays, or B2Fays for those who know her well, never thought she’d visit India when she won a prestigious art award Villa Médicis Hors les Murs in 2006. “The prize meant a lot to me,” she says. She was hoping to go to Canada for a project. She couldn’t speak English back then and thought she’d be able to get by in Canada with French; her art required technology and she thought that country would offer her more scope. But the choice of country was not hers to make. She was told she could go to India. “I had only two days to decide. So I looked up online to see which are the technology hubs and decided I’d visit Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai,” she recollects.
French connection
But she visited Pondicherry first, primarily because she wouldn’t feel totally lost in its French colony. On a bright day she came to Pondicherry, saw the rocks and black soil contrasted by blue waters of the ocean reflecting golden rays of the sun. She told herself she would be fine in this country, despite language limitations: “I felt like an E.T not being able to talk in English,” she laughs.
Now, after a decade of visiting Hyderabad for the first time and having hosted several immersive, interactive multimedia art presentations, she feels more at ease. When we catch up with her ahead of her art talk and exhibition at Goethe Zentrum, she warms up talking about her work. “I generally don’t talk much. I prefer to communicate through visual language,” she quips.
HYDERABAD.28/03/2013: The pictorial expression is filled by actions and reactions of the men leaving their trace on their environment, spatial as well as temporal, successively leaving its mark on these men, . This is the creative chain being proposed by the artist BŽatrice de Fays (alias B2Fays), a transmedia painting artist, at Hotel Park Hyatt in Hyderabad on March 28, 2013. Through the pictorial musical and interactive environment of ' Via Presence' . Layer by layer, the story is being told and simultaneously erased, as a palimpsest. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf
The exhibition will show her evolution as an artist, from 1984 when took baby steps into the art world. She comes from a family of painters but didn’t learn painting in school. “I started with comic strips and graffiti. I felt painting was old school and didn’t want to do what everyone else did. I wanted my own artistic language, my own new alphabet,” she reflects. The computer revolution was in its initial stages and she wanted to incorporate it into her art.
In 1987, she began painting: “I used computers; when you use technology to paint, you do it in clean lines. It was different from the work I do now.” Slowly, she realised she was growing out of it and looked to change her point of view. A fire mishap burnt down her paintings in 1994. She was surprised that she didn’t feel a deep sense of loss, perhaps she was seeking change. It paved way for another stage of exploration.
Collaborative art
None of her exhibitions in the city have been the regular ones where you go and just observe a painting. We, the viewers, become part of her work.
‘Via presence’, for example, was a combination of painted objects on which there was video projection and music. When you stepped in front of the screen and made several movements, layer by layer, the fragments of multi-hued images came into view. The images varied from heritage structures in Old City to street-side views, accompanied by sounds and songs we hear around us.
Her work is interactive and multi-dimensional. “I am not happy doing paintings that can decorate walls. I do that as well, but I feel incomplete when art isn’t interactive. My paintings have no finite end; as you move in front of the installation, you see a new vision of the art and yourself. It’s like collaborating with viewers,” she sums up.
Impressions on Hyderabad
Beatrice de Fays’ first visit to Hyderabad introduced her to the then Kalahita Art Foundation through Alliance Francaise. By and by, she discovered the city photo walks with like-minded people. She loves the KBR Park as much as she likes to an early morning yoga session at Taramati Baradari. The Paigah Tombs and Badshahi Ashurkhana are among her favourite spots.
(Art Talk: Kunst Forum and exhibition — movement in space — will take viewers through Beatrice de Fays’ artistic journey since 1984. At Hamburg Hall, Goethe Zentrum; September 24; 6.30 pm)
