Anjelika Vernekar Paranjpe is a Brooklyn based artist/designer/creative whose new drawings - or stylings, given her entrance on the Brooklyn party scene as art hostess extraordinaire - are playful and smart as ever. Whimsical and feminine sensibilities continue to gracefully encourage us to take pleasure in the beauty of her work while reinventing and reinvigorating traditional art forms in delightfully modern and surprisingly active new ways.
Anjelika's continuing exploration of the lotus form in her drawings historically places her more formal work in the realm of the decorative and ornamental, the lotus being one of the oldest and most commonly appropriated decorative forms in the eastern and western histories of art. Lotus petals articulated by circular lines resembling hand loomed yarn allude to her continuing explorations in textiles; her reinterpretation of ancient eastern and western ornamental motifs seem to spring out of the collective unconscious in a freshly modern new way. Each of her lotuses unfolds a panoply of ornamental motifs, in some cases borrowed directly - though not necessarily intentionally - from both ancient Greco-Roman and Mesopotamian designs on vases and carpets, as well as painted and relief decorative forms. Anjelika's work breathes new life into forms that modern movements forced us to abandon, without scolding us for leaving them behind.
The spectacular realizations of Anjelika's doodles and documentation of her voracious cultural appetite on her blog, the Googly Moogly, are the (in)famous bonanzas, parties (you might call them happenings) she's curated for two years running at MonkeyTown. The bonanzas are unbelievably well orchestrated, featuring collaborative musical acts, video artistry, and paper decoration, all of which are cast, costumed, directed, and overseen by Anjelika herself. Her "30 Things" pre-party teaser of line drawings has a dorky yet hip style that expresses the feel of all of her curated events and her all together now ethos: show up in costume and get down in style. Sticking with virtual media and blocking sections of simple colors, "30 Things" stylistically represents the anticipation of the party for participants in Anjelika's events. In our imaginations, we work out our costumes and eagerly await the party as if the bouncers were going to be cheese-hat-wearing Halo warriors and we were going to arrive in cartoonish two dimensional cars.
Anjelika's inclusive attitude toward art is something to be admired. You can enjoy almost everything she does online, and all the better if you show up when it's time to get down. Perhaps even more admirable is her steadfast dedication to constantly making it. Stay tuned.
