Mandakini for now is a tour guide, taking visitors on a tour through the city. Sometimes at Charminar, sometimes at Qutub Shahi tombs, sometimes on the foot steps of a mosque or at times to a busy market area all through an artist’s eye.
‘Hyderabad through art’ is Mandakini Rao’s solo art exhibition. Her first show was ‘Project 48’ where she painted 48 frames in 48 days. On display at Muse Art Gallery, the self-taught artist has painted 30 frames of sights and scenes around the city.
Are they an outcome of a trip to capture the city’s mood? Or was she, like other artists, inspired to present the beauty of the city from a different angle? Reality turns out to be something else. “My works are a reproduction of what I have seen and perceived around my surroundings. They are also at times inspired from photographs and images, but no, they are not replicas. Each frame has been infused with my signature style. I have used acrylic but given the water colour effect. Some of my frames are like a dream melting away. This I have done with the colours spilling and bleeding to give that effect,” explains Mandakini.
The artist however doesn’t stick to one style or medium. The effects depend on how I want my final product as I proceed to complete it. Born in the city, Mandakini Rao is a freelance graphic designer by profession and she quit her studies to take up art. “It wasn’t the best deal with my parents. They wanted me to do MS and courses like that, but seeing my interest in art I was allowed to pursue my dream in little doses. Finally they let me do a course in Visual FX and Graphic Designing in 2012 and I worked in a few places after that, but I still wanted to paint. My interest got stuck there, she says. She worked as a Creative Head/UI Designer with an iOS, Android apps company and also in an advertising agency.
Mandakini also teaches art at a hobby centre on weekends; with her back to back art assignments, she is pressurised to take a break. “My friends and family have warned me, so yes, it is a break for a week after my show,” she says.
