Engulfing space, immersive spirit - Priya Suneel's collages at Jehanagir Art Gallery

CONTEMPORARY ARTIST, PRIYA SUNEEL OPENS ‘RED SKY BLUE EARTH’,

A SELECTION OF HER MIXED-MEDIA COLLAGES AT JEHANGIR ART GALLERY, 28thAUG TO 3rd SEPT 2023

Priya Suneel's credentials as an artist are highly impressive. But it is better that we talk about that later because her artworks speak volumes. Her collages present surreal landscapes of breathtaking beauty and enigma.

We call her landscapes surreal because unlike the fauves, her usage of unreal color tones is not directed at expressing the intensity of the feelings of the object but somewhere there is a mystic element of wrapping of space around itself. As you look at the images made up of collages, you feel as if a beautiful, yet familiarly unfamiliar world is closing in around you with a loving embrace. Clearly, such artworks stemmed from her unconscious that took its spirit from the environments she experienced.

Based in the UK, Priya, is exhibiting her artworks in India after a long gap of twenty-three years. A graduate of Fine Arts from Stella Maris College, Chennai, Priya liv es and works in London. Her previous solo exhibitions include ‘Faceless’ (Chennai, 2000), ‘Waiting’ (UK, 2008), ‘Still Outside (UK, 2019) and ‘From the Other Side of the Window’ (UK, 2022).

Besides solo and group exhibitions, Priya has shown with the Society of Women Artists at the Mall Galleries in London, the Patchings Art Festival winners display exhibition at Nottinghamshire and with the Society of Nigerian Artists in Lagos.

The current body of work is a continuation of her previous series that contemplates the tactile process entailed in the assemblage of compositional elements which energize the surface. The materials are deliberate, very often connecting with the feel or atmosphere of the forms or the spaces that she creates; the lines, the flow and treatment are intuitive, and are generally dictated by the artist’s emotional response to the setting. The nature of the work and its creative process, make her collages almost impossible to replicate, and each piece is therefore one of a kind.