Palapitta on the wall: French artist Sandre’s paints Telangana’s state bird

French artist Sandre paints Palapitta on the walls of Kalakriti Art Gallery. She was in Hyderabad for the third edition of the Wall Art Festival at Kalakriti Art Gallery in collaboration with Alliance Française

A rich and colourful palapitta, Telangana’s state bird adorns the walls at Kalakriti Art Gallery in Hyderabad. The gallery’s sloped driveway wall (8x5 feet) has symmetrical images of Palapitta (Indian roller, also known as the Blue Jay) painted in yellow, blue and red — in the centre interspersed with vertical patches in different shades of blue.

Resplendent with yellow faces of Palapitta, the pyramid-like composition also has cartoon characters with binocular hands (encircling their eyes with their hands), a symbolic representation of joyous moments between friends. “I asked my friend to pose,” smiles Paris-based Sandre who painted the wall.

Breton artist Sandre (whose real name is Alexandre) was in Hyderabad for the third edition of the Wall Art Festival held in early October at Kalakriti Art Gallery in collaboration with Alliance Française. She made a sketch before first painting it in the primary colours of red, blue and yellow; two painters helped her in completing the project.

Interestingly, Sandre’s characters usually have a ‘yellow’ face and do not have any edges. This love to paint cartoon characters began in school. After studying animation at Gobelins Paris, she ventured into creating murals but with a touch of animation, on the streets of Paris and Cambodia, Vietnam, and Belgium. “I didn’t want to be just in front of the computer. I wanted to see the world, share moments with people and create characters inspired by lively experiences.”

Sandre also creates mappings for events and animations on immersive devices. With colourful and nuanced cartoonish characters, her style is naive and surreal but with an ironic narration. Working on large-scale curves allows her to express movements while bringing various characters to life. “I prefer to give love and joy to people through the colours and characters I use and paint; It feels good to spread smiles,” says Sandre thrilled to see a few youngsters walk into the gallery, smiling at her wall art and trying to make binocular hands.

The third edition of wall art began in October with a trip to Colombo in Sri Lanka to paint the walls of Ecole Francaise Internationale de Colombo (EFIC). However, she had to stop the mural midway due to a heavy downpour and create a new one at Alliance Francaise de Colombo.

The Wall Art Festival takes her to Udaipur and then to Chandigarh. The Udaipur mural on the walls of City Palace focuses on the endangered species. While she is excited to travel to Rajasthan, Sandre is scared of only one thing: “I have to use a scaffolding to paint the 14-metre high wall.”