Meet the Mancunian - S5 - Meet the artist Mahua Roy

Meet the Mancunian – Season 5- Meet the artist Mahua Roy transcript

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Hi Mahua. So great to talk to you.

Mahua Roy: Hi Dee. How are you doing?

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: good. We met recently….Was it last week or maybe week before last, which was so great. After such a long time. And,

Mahua Roy:  Yes, week before last. It was great.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And you are up to a lot of exciting things now with art. So tell us about that.

Mahua Roy: So I have just enrolled into an advanced art course with Bombay Art Society.

And the reason why I did was, while I'd like to think I'm a very good artist and I don't need to learn anything new, the fact of the matter is that, you are always learning and it helps when you are learning from the stalwarts. So I've got some very good professors who are experts in their own field and they are well known artists in from the art world.

And they're very kind. They're very nice with their feedback. It, it helps, you know, I realise you can't learn in isolation. You really need a mentor who can critique your work. And also another reason why I'm doing this course is because it's also going to teach me how to market my art.

You know, while artists like to think that, you know, we just paint. And one day some art collector will discover us and life will be sorted. It doesn't work that way. And since I come from the marketing communications & public relations background, I feel it's very important to be able to market your work as well and not depend on anyone.

So that is also one of the subjects which we will be dealing with, which we will be learning. So I'm pretty excited about it. And of course there's going to be an art exhibition in the end. So, yeah. Pretty excited.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Sounds really exciting and it's so great to see you doing art now full-time. After being in communications and marketing for a long time.

Mahua Roy: It's been a dream, Deepa, and it's funny how you know when you are meant to do something, it just comes back to you. I mean, I try doing a Masters in Art History. I did finish one year and then I left it because of personal reasons and I couldn't really go back again.

And I sort of got drifted into other things, other stuff. But I don't know, it just came back to me again, you know, so it's amazing.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: This is your passion. So it's found you again.

Mahua Roy: Yes, absolutely. You're right.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I can't wait to see what all you do with your art, because I know you have this lovely Alice in Wonderland series, which you are now working on.

Mahua Roy: Yes and I am working on something which I want to give you. So, yeah. From the Alice in Wonderland series

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yeah, that would be lovely. I can't wait for that.

So we were talking a little bit also about the creatives and this time we've gone for a slightly more drastic look where we've tried to focus a lot on podcast discoverability and kind of remove some of the elements so that we could focus on that. So tell us a little bit about how that must have been quite a challenge for you, because you were doing very different creatives before that.

Mahua Roy: So, being an artist, you know, I like to fill up my canvas. Of course, it depends on what kind of you know, painting I'm doing. Is it minimalist? Is it maximalist? So, so it all depends on that, but I'm used to filling up my canvas. That's the kind of work I do, right? You've seen them.

So I was using the same style for your creatives earlier. So later when we discussed this and you told me that perhaps we could cut down on a few elements and stuff like that and make it a little more minimalist so you were right.

What people are actually supposed to see is the name of the podcast with the prefix and the suffix,  that sort of gets hidden right with so many elements, which you pointed out to me rightly. It was a challenge to, to rework on it.

Because I was so tempted to… it's empty. There has to be something. There's so much of negative space. There has to be something here? And remember I showed you a couple of… I mean, I worked on the minimalist design and then I was not very happy with it because it looked too empty. I bought some time from you, like a day, and I said, let me rework and let me give you both the options, and you decide.

And then I was actually very happy. But then, now when you of course chose the, the one which was more minimalist, and now when I look at it, I realise. That was the right decision you made. It has to be minimalist because the focus has to be the name also the podcaster and the prefixes and suffixes that we add, you know?

And yet it has to be attractive. It has to be interesting for people. People should be intrigued, you know? I mean, that's how I choose my podcast. The name is very important. You know, if I find it interesting, I will look into the other elements and I will sort of explore it. So yeah, that, that's the journey of you know, transformation. Changing, transforming it.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I also learned it through the workshops I was attending. And I love what you've done because you've taken the bees and the avatar, and you've kind of integrated it into the logo. So it's still got some very interesting elements of the worker bee because that is the ethos of Manchester's spirit.

Mahua Roy: Absolutely. I mean, we couldn't have had it any other way because that's what Manchester is all about. That's what Meet the Mancunian is all about.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's right.

Mahua Roy: So I couldn't have, we couldn't have had it any other way, right. So the bees had to go there. Just that it had to be juxtaposed in such a way that, you know, it doesn't sort of, it's not all over the place. So it's more tight and more compact now.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And of course we've brought in social impact stories from Manchester, the tagline, which is something new we've introduced.

Mahua Roy: Yeah, I really like the tagline. How did you come about it? It's a very interesting tagline.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I was just thinking about what is it that my podcast is about and how do you explain that? Because I've realised many people don't know what a Mancunian is. And I said, this is actually at the simplest level, it's stories in Manchester and it's stories about people making social impact, people making a difference. So that's it. It's at the simplest level social impact stories from Man Manchester.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And that's what the podcast offers you over now 59 episodes.

Mahua Roy: Wow. That's really something Deepa, that's really something.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Great talking to you, Mahua. And thanks so much for the amazing creatives as always. And I can't wait to see…

Mahua Roy: Thank you for choosing me.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Always.

And I'm so delighted to work on them. It's, it's always so exciting to... like these creatives and come up with new ideas. Yeah. It's been lovely working with you.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And each one is better than the next, like when you do a particular creative, I'm like, wow, this is amazing. And then the next season it's, it's even more amazing…

Take care, Mahua.

Mahua Roy: Oh, lovely, lovely. I'm so happy. Yes. Bye-bye. Have a nice day.