Blending Borders is an ode to people whose hearts lie in more than one city

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.”

Adukia, herself, is an epitome of a multi-hyphenated identity. The qualified chartered accountant and certified professional accountant grew up in Surat before moving to Mumbai where she studied and worked for several years. In 2016, she moved to the US soon after her wedding; her husband, who grew up in Bengaluru, had migrated there by then. While she had always done art from elementary school, “portrait sketching, calligraphy, glass painting, pencil colours, charcoal, oil colours, pastels. You name it and I had tried it.” it was only after she moved to the US that she formally studied art at the Art Students League of New York. “I had to take a two-year break from corporate work pending the processing of my work permit,” says Adukia, who has over a decade of experience as a tax consultant. The time spent with nothing to occupy herself, since her work visa was held up, took a major toll on her mental health. “I wouldn’t step out of the house for days. I tried for months to occupy myself with art, but in vain. I would end up staring at the art supplies, driving my anxiety further,” recalls the artist, who now is back to working as a tax consultant, balancing her art with her profession fairly seamlessly.

Then, her partner, Kartik, registered her for a watercolour workshop at the Art Students League of New York, forcing her to get out of her funk and step out of the house. “That five-day workshop liberated me in unknown ways and literally changed my life,” she says. “Sometimes fate draws a mysterious stroke leading you to pursue your innermost desires. Such is my story as someone who picked up art as a profession after moving to the United States,” says Adukia, who typically works with graphite and professional watercolours and counts Joya Logue, Dayanita Singh and Payal Kadakia, as her artistic inspirations.

Less than a year after the workshop, she released her first series Déjà vu Bombay New York, exhibited her work in Manhattan with the help of the not-for-profit organization, Product of Culture, and helped raise funds in the annual charity gala of NYC chapters of organizations such as Pratham USA and The Citizens Foundation.

Raju Rickshaw on Golden Gate
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

“My learnings in India honed my technical skills whereas my brief stint at the art institution in the US taught me art as a medium of self-expression and led me to start building a career out of it,” believes Adukia, who is currently working on the 25th piece of her Blending Borders series, the largest in size of all her works so far — a 40 x 60-inch picture depicting a passenger seated in a rickshaw driving through Manhattan.

“New York provided an atmosphere like never before to pursue art. It celebrates uniqueness, recognises originality and nurtures emerging creatives,” believes Adukia, who is grateful to have rediscovered her long-lost hobby when she moved to the city. Immigrant art, she points out, reflects so many facets: the artist’s relationship with the place they left, their relationship with the place they have moved to and how they feel about moving, something Blending Borders effectively captures.

Samiksha Adukia
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

“Blending Borders is an ode to the people whose hearts lie in more than one place. An ode to the experience of moving out of comfort zones and embracing the unfamiliar. An ode to loving the new without having to stop loving the old,” she says.

You can see more of Adukia’s work at thecurlyhairartist.com