Gunjan Aylawadi: Artist we love

Intrinsic and mind boggling are words that only begin to describe Gunjan Aylawadi’s art practice. Originally from New Delhi, the Sydney based artist had a creative streak, even as a kid. “When I was young, I used to make things to decorate my space and it was always with paper,” she reminisces.

After graduating as a computer engineer, Gunjan got married and moved from India to the US. Always fascinated by the creative field, she found herself looking at websites of furniture designers. On one such occasion, she noticed a designer had studied industrial design. As she harboured a dream to study design, life happened to take her to Australia where she finally enrolled in the course.

She had a few months in hand before school commenced and figured it would be fun to decorate her new home with art. “I remember thinking what if I could use paper in a way that it wouldn’t look tacky. I was always making stuff with paper but it was never polished. It was my go-to material,” she adds.

Her weapons of choice to painstakingly create massive mosaics and tapestries? Just paper and glue. Her pattern filled artworks take her back to India. “We have patterns everywhere from our old buildings to textiles. It’s the fabric of the society and I wanted to explore that,” she explains.

She also noticed how across the globe, cultures have adopted prints in their own way to create a specific identity. “It’s a common thread in the world. There is certainty in geometry and repetition,” she elaborates “and processes that initially took months, now take a week or so depending on the size”.

Website: www.gunjanaylawadi.com

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