HYDERABAD: Artist Faiza Hasan is elated; she will soon be packing her bags to travel to Bordeaux, Metropole France as part of a cultural exchange project. For this programme, Kalakriti Art Gallery had hosted artist Yassine Balbzioui from Bordeaux last year for the Kalakriti Artist Residency Project and his paintings were also showcased in a solo exhibition organised by the gallery.
At the gallery, Faiza shares details of the trip. “I will be there for four weeks and a well thought out programme has been put in place for me. It includes two weeks of production time; also a lot of interaction with artists, art students, universities, galleries and museums. It will be an enriching experience,” she exults and adds, “I will be learning about a different culture.”
New vistasAs one of the emerging artists of Hyderabad, Faiza’s imprint on the art scene has been a promising one. With a gold medal as the best outgoing student, she has held three group shows till now. “I am not in a hurry to do a solo show. Right now, I want to work, experiment and explore. I have also recently graduated. I see no hurry and rushing into solo show which is massive deal,” she states.
While watercolours is her favourite medium, her college days also opened up new vistas. “Artists have different temperaments and I think watercolour suits mine. At the same time, when I was doing my post graduation, I discovered that I really enjoyed embroidery. I reached a stage when I was torn between watercolours and embroidery. I started combining both of them but largely the end product of my work is displayed in an installation-like form,” she explains.
Her exhibit ‘ Haath Lagaake Toh Dekho ’ at Kalakriti Art Gallery was a mix of watercolours and embroidery. “As an artist, I like to explore the structure, certain ideas and concepts. Usually I like to borrow from societal structures and things around me that affect me as a person, woman and an artist. When I was completing my MFA, I did a body of work around women and violence and socially constructed notions of domesticity and the notions of what people will say. These kind of ideas really interest me because these also form a structure around deeper things. When you look at the earth, there is a surface and inside there is a crux. Basically, I am exploring the area around it. The ideas are interconnected and I am deconstructing these ideas understanding them better,” she points out.
She talks about the challenges as an artist. “There will be different kinds of challenges but a personal challenge for me as an artist is to turn up at the studio everyday and work. It is like riyaaz , you have to keep at your work; That’s where the inspiration will come and your work will grow.”
Voyage of discoveryShe has also been a curator for the Student’s Biennalle at the Kochi Muziris Biennale, 2014. In fact, she has been invited to be a curator/researcher for the second edition too scheduled to take place in December 2016. While recalling the experience, she shares, “Working in a platform like that is amazing, because you discover that a lot of artists come together for something that is bigger than them, as individuals; something that is large and that is really inspiring. The sort of artists who have invested in this Biennale, the founders and the ones who work with it, all are really hands on and it is inspiring to watch them work like that.” She also affirms that the Biennalle is a voyage of discovery for youngsters like her. “It kind of breaks your notion and broadens your horizon about possibilities of what art can be. A lot of us are conventionally conditioned to believe that a painting on canvas is art. When you go there, you see works by Indian and international artists and you realise that there are so many more possibilities, mediums and so many ways of using art.”
