Born out of love and passion, House of Berserk was founded by Priyanka Thaker as a high spirited practice striving to make the immediate world a vibrant space. Evolving from her architecture background, Priyanka's studio has blossomed through the years by virtue of conscious choices and eccentric exploration. Transforming spaces with trailblazing design thinking ideas, the studio creates immersive experiences with an array of mediums that defy conventional artistic boundaries.
In our conversation with Priyanka, we delve into the wellsprings of inspiration behind her vivid colour aesthetics, exploring the layers of her design process. Through her artistry, she aims to invoke a sense of belonging and connection, offering a refuge for all who encounter her creations to immerse themselves in a world of imagination and uninhibited expression.
What led you to start House of Berserk?
HoB came into being in 2019 so it is almost five years old now. It is a Storyteller's Mecca. I conceived it as a pseudonym—an identity for my eccentric other self. Though I have been painting for as long as I can remember. It was always a box of colours over barbies. What drew me to painting was the understanding that we spend the days being smaller, more acceptable. But when I am making art, I get to experience the world the way I feel it. With indescribable rage and unbearable sadness and huge passion.
I am also an academician in architecture. The gruelling training as an architect has prepared us with the innate understanding of scale, space and volumes. A deeper understanding as to how to alter the way the patrons are meant to walk around or within the space that hold the art installation. It helps us to take on projects of various scales without any hesitation. Architectural studies also introduces you to multiple creative practices—lighting, furniture, visual arts, music, performing arts, films and many more. We believe all that one has seen, heard or experienced feeds into our work one way or another.
What inspired your vibrant colour aesthetics?
For me, colour is ‘a vital element, like water or fire’, It is not just an emotion, but energy vital to my practice, a holistic way of healing. Below the surface of House of Berserk’s solid bold colours and black lines is an artists’ inquiry into the role of artist and viewer, where a work of art is more than an object of admiration disconnected from its inception. In our works, the saturation and recklessness of this language of colours communicate with tremendous intensity, the ambiguous phenomenon of role, simultaneously representing the lack of any discernible expression.
What is your design process when you work on a project?
Majority of my work is narrative-based, going around identity and its fluxes. Each work is custom done for a particular client. So, for me it is absolutely essential to have those conversations as to where they come from, to understanding who they are right now and where do they aspire to go or be in the next ten years. Which establishes the relevance of the artwork for them. A narrative of life so far while making plenty of room for what is yet to come. Then the process goes meditative for me defined by an uninhibited flow. While the compositions embody my internal state and the impermanence of the world around me for, I am the narrator, I incorporate a lot of folklore as elements in my work too.
What sort of feeling do you wish to give to anyone who interacts with your art?
I believe that design is a question of love. With my art, I want to enrich people’s lives, strengthen communities, enhance nature with a lasting economic value. When someone witnesses these works, they should feel home! Belong—even for a fleeting moment. Feel that they belong to something, someone, someplace in this entirety of a universe.
From wall murals to installations, what do you enjoy more making and how do you see them differently?
We work with large scale wall drawings and installations as a medium to explore the interaction of social processes with physical spaces. While both facilitate richer dialogues between people and what's left of their collective memories, installations are more like autonomous sculptures. Serving a function beyond just being art for art's sake.
Words Paridhi Badgotri
Date 02.05.2024
