Axe ’Em, Jacks!
NACOGDOCHES, Texas – An exhibition of digital photography by Priya Kambli is on display in Griffith Gallery on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus through Nov. 8.
“Priya Kambli: Color Falls Down” expresses “the notion of transience and split cultural identity caused by the act of migration,” Kambli said, explaining that the exhibition serves to “re-contextualize and alter my family snapshots … to reveal the correlations between generations, cultures and memory.”
Kambli has viewed migration through the lens, studying her own personal history and cultural journey from India to the United States.
“This journey left me feeling disconnected, unable to anchor myself in any particular cultural framework,” she writes. “I have therefore formed a hybrid identity, a patching together of two cultures within one person. In my work I explore absence, loss and genealogy through the use of my own family snapshots.”
Kambli’s photographs interweave early memories of her childhood in India with more recent experiences of her adult life in the United States, including marriage and motherhood. Her images are centered in a sense of longing that is not uncommon for those existing within two cultures and for whom the idea of home stretches over multiple places, explains John Handley, director of SFA art galleries.
The artist will visit the SFA campus to teach classes in photography. She is an art professor at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. Her work has been widely exhibited across the U.S. She holds a B.F.A. from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and an M.F.A. from the University of Houston. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Kansas City Artists Coalition in Kansas City and Living Arts in Tulsa, Oklahoma, among other venues. She has participated in group exhibitions at Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the Italien Palatset in Vaxjo, Sweden. Kambli was a Light Work Artist-in-Residence in 2009. Kambli’s images can be viewed on her website at www.priyakambli.com.
A closing reception with the artist is planned for Nov. 8. The exhibition is sponsored in part by the SFA Friends of the Visual Arts, The Flower Shop and William Arscott.
Griffith Gallery is located in the Griffith Fine Arts Building, 2222 Alumni Drive. Hours are from 12:30 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters. For more information, call (936) 468-1131.