Meet Princess Pea whose giant mask leaves people curious

The omnipresent “head” is a result of much labour. “I asked my sister, ‘Why don’t you let me draw you?’ And then I thought, ‘What if I draw my body and her head?’ So it came out as an abstract form of face and big eyes,” says the artist. The name ‘Princess Pea’ emerged from that process. “When crafting the clay head, we would cover it with wet sack. One day, there was a sprout and I thought, this was the answer,” she says. And it had nothing to do with Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale The Princess and the Pea.

Besides collaborating with fashion designer Aneeth Arora for the last year and a half for her Princess Pea costumes, the post graduate in painting from Delhi College of Art, works in an alternate world. Here, her alter-ego lazes against silk bolsters on terraces in Mughal-style miniature paintings, or hangs out with characters and personalities from popular culture —  the boys from American show South Park, Marjane Satrapi’s women, artist Yoko Ono, Draupadi and even the Red Queen. She invites outsiders to be a part of the “Pea Family”. At the India Art Fair 2013 and 2014, for instance, she allowed visitors to fill in a “Pea O Box Friendship Card” where they could write about and draw their alter-egos. The box is placed in the Delhi gallery, while an animated video, titled The Pea Family, of 100 anonymous alter-ego drawings is projected on the wall.

pallavi.pundir@expressindia.com