French artist Béatrice de Fays’ bond with Hyderabad is so deep that she is turning to Augmented Reality Animation to express her feelings about living in the city.
Unfolding the story of a woman’s experiences in Hyderabad, her new show, ‘A Woman in the Dance-City’ is currently on at Art Walkway, Park Hyatt (on till December 13). It comprises 12 paintings, which are like a dream inspired by the granite rocks on the Deccan Plateau.
- Besides conceptualising and painting, artist Béatrice de Fays has given a voice over to the exhibits along with Bari Kumar. Music is by Mathieu Constans and Guillaume Evrard is the AR Developer. The production team includes Scan 360 studios and Fil d’Ariane Association and the show is presented by Alliance Française of Hyderabad and the French Institute in India.
Different dimensions
Visitors can watch the paintings come alive by downloading in.space app and scanning each painting to discover spatial, narrative and sound dimensions. In this series, a visitor sees 12 entities, spaces and energies: the Buddha of the rocks, the dragonfly, the tree, the source, the rest, the dance.
Watching the different visual layers unveil the ‘Bouddha’ artwork, one can feel the novel and personal experience unfold. “I am glad the canvas evokes diverse experiences,” says the artist, adding that the painting transports her to her childhood, and the two Buddha statues at home. “There was war and violence in the world and emotions that I didn’t understand. I saw the Buddha’s smile every day and had questions for him,” she says.
At the show, two worlds meet on canvas to bring back memories of her artist’s days in Paris. Béatrice had done a painting 30 years ago depicting a movie and the people involved in it — the writer, the actor, the boy who fetches water on the film set and the production crew. This flashy world gets juxtaposed with rocks and a spiritual universe of Buddha from the Borobudur temple in Indonesia. “It is a perception that I had of the world 30 years ago. I understood some things then but couldn’t interpret it. Likewise, I see some things now but can’t explain,” she adds.
Béatrice dwells deep in the material (physical) and non-material (metaphysical) concepts in her works. “I dream and travel through my art; I meditate when I paint; They transform me,” she says. Her three-dimension paintings are a space for experimentation and to blend the past, present and future. Buddha is at the core of the paintings. “Buddha shows another world and space that is good. He also teaches me that the stream of consciousness can be transmitted through painting or other creative forms. It opens up doorways through other senses,” she explains.
The artist has continuously navigated between painting and interactive installations and decided to bring these two expressions together. She chose the AR format for these works because AR allows her “to show 3D space, music, stories, and the different worlds that a painting can contain (not counting only on the sensitivity and imagination of visitors). It's a bit like showing a part of the soul of the painting. And paintings have an infinite soul.”
Béatrice, who usually works with a multitude of layers, composite elements and techniques explains the process, “Thanks to my earlier research, I understood how to combine different elements to go back to the genesis of my paintings, and formulate a journey into the depths of the canvas."
Team work
She has worked earlier with Mathieu Constans (music) and Guillaume Evrard (AR Developers). “It is easy to tell a story with good partners because they understand it better. He understands my viewpoints and it is necessary to understand where we are going as a team,” she says.
The programmer used the UNITY program to develop the in.space application. While Mathieu Constans provided music for each painting, Beatrice gave 2D images and a scenario and the team worked together on the spatialization.
