Rani Fankha with her artwork “Curry on a Plate”. Photo: Nikki Bailey.
As the daughter of a Swiss mother and Sri Lankan father, Rani Fankha struggled with cultural identity and belonging and from a young age art became her escape.
“I did not have a lot of friends in school – I was bullied a bit just for being different and drawing and painting was my outlet, my safe place,” Rani said.
“I would just practice and practice and that’s where it got me today.”
Rani moved to Esperance three-years-ago with her partner and daughter and for the first time she feels “very at home”.
She is now an artist and fashion designer and during April her work was displayed at the Cannery Arts Centre for her first solo exhibition “Re:Connecting”.
It took Rani 1.5 years to plan and create her gallery.
She said all her artwork is special to her but crafting one in particular, ignited the theme for her exhibit.
“The one that has the biggest impact on me as a person is the big piece on the blue fabric… I wasn’t quite sure where I was going with it and then I just felt like I wanted to start exploring my own roots and heritage,” Rani said.
“I was inspired by the colours of curry that I cooked so I painted that on the canvas and then added portraits of my grandparents, my dad and myself to the canvas’.”
Rani’s father fled the civil war in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s and immigrated to Switzerland.
Rani grew up in Bern and said she had a strong bond to her mother’s Swiss family but never got the chance to spend time with her father’s relatives.
“I didn’t really have the intention [to connect with them] but when I was drawing the portraits I’d notice the face and I just built a relationship that I wasn’t able to build when they were alive,” she said.
From a young age Rani understood the complexity of cultural differences and acceptance, but it wasn’t until she came to Australia and observed the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians that she felt the need to make a difference.
“I’m quite an empathetic person and I felt overwhelmed and thought how can I contribute? What can I do?” she said.
“I felt like I had to look at my own story because I have a connection to colonialism and the impact of war and that division as well.
“I thought that it might help me understand the story here better, that was the idea of it.”
Rani said she felt safe making herself vulnerable in Esperance and said the community has been “supportive beyond expectations.”
“For the opening about 100 people came which is quite unusual – we don’t usually get that many,” she said.
“Since the opening we’ve had about 900 people come in overall.”
The exhibition ended on May 4, but Rani said she has a few group exhibitions in the works.
