Like most commuters on the New York subway, the masked man, whose side curls and tzitzit indicate he probably belongs to the ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community, looks steadfastly ahead, ignoring his neighbour. It must take some effort, though: the veshti-clad gent spreading across two seats and reading Prajavani, a trusted Kannada daily, must be a somewhat incongruous sight in the city, even in one as diverse as New York). . This artwork, titled Bengaluru Mornings in NYC Subway is part of a recent series, by New York-based artist Samiksha Adukia titled Blending Borders.
“In this series, I have captured the fleeting beauty of my imagination and merged the souls of different places, evoking limitless emotions,” says Adukia, who goes by the moniker, The Curly Hair Artist. All the artworks in this series have a similar aesthetic: things and places that are quintessentially Indian transposed onto the steel-and-chrome, water-fringed landscapes of New York and San Francisco.
Think Mumbai’s kali-peelis and Kolkata’s yellow Ambassador taxis meandering through Manhattan, the ubiquitous Raju Rickshaw gleefully careering across both the Brooklyn Bridge and Golden Gate, an exhausted dabbawalla catching a breather at the subway and a visarjan in the Hudson, among other admittedly implausible scenes. “I am a prolific purveyor of the otherworldly and believe that we are wild spirits who cannot be confined to one place.”
