London: Indian artist Hanif Kureshi has created a stir in France by taking to the streets of Paris - literally.

Kureshi, who believes in taking culture to the common man through giant street installations, has been given pride of place in a Paris exhibition.

Kureshi, described by the organisers as "a promising young artist of the Indian scene", has put up a 10m tall, hand-painted cut-out portrait of an Indian woman, "Auntie Maria".

This is included in an exhibition, Les Extatiques (The Ecstatic), being held in La Défense, Europe's largest purpose-built business district, 3km west of the city limits of Paris. It is known for its highrise glass-and-steel buildings.

Kureshi, 31, who studied fine arts at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, has gained a fair amount of recognition in the West. His work has been shown at the Venice Biennale (2011), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011), Design Helps in Helsinki, and Finland (2012).

India has always had artists capable of doing large paintings. Before the arrival of digital technology, Indian film posters were painted by hand. M.F. Husain was one such artist who began by painting Bollywood posters. What these artists showed was a remarkable ability not to lose a sense of perspective even though they had to get up on ladders to do film posters (few of which survive).

Patrick Devedjian, president of the department of Hauts-de-Seine, the locality where the exhibition is being held, said: "Paris La Défense is mostly known in France as the incarnation of the world of work, with its concrete and steel towers, where passers-by have their eyes on their smartphone.

"Yet, since its creation, this is a territory where art has its place: there are engineers, urban planners, architects and artists.

"Since its inception in 1958, urban development of the district was accompanied by commissions and acquisitions of works representative of the great artistic trends of the 20th century: surrealism, kinetics, conceptual art... which today constitute the largest collection of works of art in a public space."

Fabrice Bousteau, the artistic director, commented: "In the last 15 years, cities around the world have been reinvented with the aim of increasing the enjoyment of the inhabitants especially by reducing noise and visual pollution, by decreasing traffic, by multiplying the cycle paths, enlarging green spaces, by rehabilitating heritage jewels and bringing art to the streets so that it is part of everyday life.

"La Défense, a district of Paris born of a utopia of the 1960s, is the very symbol of this evolution of the city."

Marie-Celie Guillaume, executive director of Paris La Défense, explained: "At 60, Paris La Défense has opened a new chapter in its history. The business district is becoming more and more a place of life, leisure but also of culture."

Kureshi, who heads an organisation called St+Art Foundation, once said in an interview: "There are two ways of looking at street painting. On the one hand, there's graffiti, which seemingly stands for complete freedom. The artist refuses to look to the authorities for permission and grabs what he believes is his freedom of expression."

In the UK, Banksy is the best-known exponent of guerrilla art.

Kureshi pointed out: "The other is street art that takes the legal route. This is something we have worked hard to achieve at the St+Art Foundation. We began with a door-to-door campaign in the urban villages of Delhi, asking for permission to paint their walls, followed by a three-to-four-year progression, making requests to paper-pushers at various government offices."

He added: "I was still a student of fine arts in Vadodara when I realised how art in our country has become institutionalised by the top artists, galleries, collectors. While that is not something we're necessarily opposed to, it can be quite restrictive in many ways.

"Our country has a rich heritage of arts and crafts, and yet India's contribution to the world of art is but barely 1 per cent. We believe that the only way to spread art and make it more popular is to take it to the streets and have more people participate."