India, April 10 -- On the surface, her life looks like something out of a fairytale.

The Dutch artist Afra Eisma, 33, lives in the picturesque city of the Hague, with her girlfriend and two cats. She works at an artist-run fine-arts centre that sits alongside a school building, a gallery, artists in residence, and one of the largest literary archives in the Netherlands.

Her work has been shown around the world, with a major exhibition at The Tetley in Leeds in 2023 (more on that in a bit), space at the recently concluded Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and a show that just opened at the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru.

Her work looks like something out of Wonderland too: vibrant colours, rich textures, and characters that could bl...