The Art Gallery of Western New England University will be hosting “Stones of Emptiness,” an exhibit by painter Priya Nadkarni, from October 2- November 3. The Art Gallery is located in the St. Germain Campus Center, where Nadkarni will offer insight into her work during a Gallery Talk on Thursday, October 13, at 7:00 p.m.
Priya Nadkarni has shown her work in both solo and group exhibitions in spaces such as the Kimmel Center Galleries at New York University, Jersey City Museum, Cuchifritos Gallery NYC, Zimmerli Art Museum, Concordia College, and the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. She is a recipient of the international Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant as well as a fellowship from the University of Massachusetts, and was a 2013 artist-in-residence at the Blue Mountain Center.
She received her MFA in Painting from University of Massachusetts Amherst and her BFA in Printmaking from Rutgers University. Priya is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Springfield, MA.
"My work reveals the underbellies of the American consciousness,” explains Nadkarni. "The moral quandaries that arise through forays of desire, seduction, violence and power. A perpetual state of warfare that wages on, hidden by promises of candy-coated fairy tales and infinite bouts of pleasure. The emotional landscape which yearns for more and is never satisfied."
"In this body of work titled 'Stones of Emptiness,' I aim to render the temporal nature of our existence. These are objects of great frivolity, and they mark an impetus to commemorate and archive our life events. And yet, their disposability rings true the very finite condition of an existence that many seek to immortalize," Nadkarni added. "The very process of painting these objects lends itself to an intensely fleeting quality of capturing light glaring off a metallic, moving surface; a holiday caricature warped into submission by the tufts and folds of mylar. A quiet and delicate draft could change so much, and a glimpse is never enough. Could our pleasure be measured by these stones of emptiness?”
All Art Gallery events are free and open to the public.
