Priya Wittman: Stormy Weather

“My recent installations are best described as landscapes created through expanded painting techniques. I gravitate toward materials that are accessible and quotidian, yet also project certain elemental qualities, such as light, space, or line. The interspersion of miniature sculpture within the landscape brings a human component into the otherwise formal work. The sculpture are stand ins for myself — they are observing, contemplating, elucidating their physical and mental environment. They remind me that ultimately my work is centered on describing the human condition to the maximum extent that I can perceive it.”

Stormy Weather depicts cyclical expressions of anxiety by layering patterns repeatedly into surfaces and space. The paintings and assemblages explore intimate, personal anxiety, and multiply/mirror/repeat the individual to reflect a larger communal state of unease and worry — a collective angst. Uncertainty is stressful, but it is a precursor to transformation. Perhaps this low level sense of dread is a catalyst for a shift, a renewal. Despite the angst, these artworks are ultimately optimistic. Similar to uncertainty, the anxious processes of layering and repetition are the means of revealing clarity, light, and sublime color interaction. Sunlight is rarely more beautiful than when it follows a storm.

Priya Wittman is an artist living and working in Indianapolis. She received her BFA in 2011 and MFA in 2016 from Herron School of Art & Design in Indianapolis. She has been the recipient of multiple scholarships and awards, including a summer fellowship award in 2009 at Ox-Box School of Art in Saugatuck, Michigan. She has exhibited in several states across the US, and completed a residency at AIR Studio Paducah in Kentucky. In addition to her studio practice, she periodically teaches painting and drawing courses as adjunct faculty at Herron School of Art, and works at Ignition Arts, an arts fabrication company based in Indianapolis.