I am a multimedia artist based in Brooklyn, New York, whose work primarily composes of painting, installation, printmaking and drawing. As an active member of BWAC, a coalition of Brooklyn artists, I exhibit, chair the summer show, and have been a featured artist; in their civil war era exhibition space on the Red Hook waterfront. I am also an exhibiting member of the Indo-American Arts Council’s, “Erasing Borders”, annual traveling show.
Born and raised in Kerala, India, my earliest influences were the elaborate temple arts and colorful folk and religious rituals of my state. My interest in the visual arts led me to enter the theater arts program at the Kerala Kalamandalam (The Kerala State Academy of Arts). There I studied the intricate, built-up (almost sculptural) makeup and costume design for two, centuries old, dance- drama forms unique to Kerala, Kudiyattam (from the 10th century, considered to be the oldest, continuous theater form in the world) and Kathakali (established during the time of Shakespeare). Both art forms, tell stories from Hindu mythology. This rich artistic lineage of images and color still fuels my art.
In New York City, I studied painting, printmaking, and sculpture at the Art Students League where I received the "John Hovannes Memorial Merit Scholarship" and other honors. I have also won, a "Diverse Forms Artists Projects Regional Initiative Grant", a "Project Studio Program Residency at Painting Space 122", an installation for the "Mid-Manhattan library Art in Windows program" and a "Manhattan Graphics Center Fall Printmaking Scholarship".
I was one of six artists whose work and words were featured in a multimedia presentation for the National Day of Listening at the NYPL, on Fifth Avenue. This material is now archived at the Library of Congress. Other recent highlights include a solo show "Journey Through Broken Bubbles" at the UUFH Gallery in Huntington; featured artist at BWAC's show "Lineage", where I presented an installation, print and painting project, "Transparent Space"; the Newark Annual Arts Festival's Invitational Artist Exhibition Ironbound Unbound #2 and a site-specific installation for the inaugural show at the Prospect St. Fire House Cultural Center as part of Ironbound Unbound #3.
From 2014-15, my work was seen in” Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation” at the Smithsonian, Washington. This year and half long exhibition featured the first in-depth examination into the history of Indian-Americans in the USA. Also, in 2014, I was in a two- person exhibit, Heritage India, at Strathmore’s invitational gallery in North Bethesda, Maryland.
In 2016, my work traveled with IAAC’s Erasing Borders to the Contemporary Art Center of NJ and two other locations. I also created two site-specific pieces one for the Bay Ridge SAW in Brooklyn, which seeks to increase public awareness of art by exhibiting in storefronts, and another for BWAC of a 20- foot- long transparent bridge, that encouraged the viewers to think about connections between art and community.
Upcoming in 2017, a selection of my etchings will be shown in “India Inked!” at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I will again chair the summer BWAC exhibition in Red Hook, and my work will be represented in the Indian Arts Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Other selected past exhibition venues include the Queens Museum of Art, Islip Art Museum, the Hammond Museum, JCAL, The Guild Art Gallery, the Aicon Gallery, the Twelve Gates Art Gallery, the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, the galleries at Queen’s College, Manhattanville College, Stony Brook University, University of Connecticut, Penn College, St. John's University, the 80 Washington Square East galleries at New York University, the Permanent Mission of India to the UN and the Indian Consulate.
