Priya Kambli
Sona and Me (Breaux's Studio), 2020
Estimated Value: $750

Archival inkjet print
15 x 10 inches
Unframed
Edition 1/3
Signed, on print
Donated by the artist.

My work has always been informed by the loss of my parents, my experience as a migrant, and an archive of family photographs I brought with me to America. For the past decade, this archive of family photographs has been my primary source material in creating bodies of work which explore the migrant narrative and challenges of cross-cultural understanding.

Buttons for Eyes:
When I was a child, my inability to ever find anything, even objects right in front of me, led to my mother’s playful question, “Do you have eyes or buttons for eyes?” Intended as lighthearted criticism, her question summarized my inability to see, look, observe, find. Buttons for Eyes is my 20/20 vision response to her playful yet nuanced question. A question laced with parental fear; if you can’t see, look, observe, find, then how will you successfully navigate the world? Now that I am older than my mother was when she said those words, I see the world from my adopted home in the United States, and from within an environment of heightened anti-immigrant rhetoric which has altered the context in which migrant voices like mine are heard. Using the photographic lens, I strive to understand the formation and erasure of identity that is an inevitable part of the migrant experience by providing a much-needed personal perspective on the resulting fragmentation of family, identity, and culture.

Despite these weighty issues, there is playfulness embedded in the very title Buttons for Eyes. I am imagining what we might see with our button eyes; suggesting that seeing clearly calls for seeing the world in more unusual ways. Play occurs in this work in my use of both color and natural light. These are materials to manipulate; split into sparks, smear into rainbows, and find shimmering back from the depths of powdered pigments. In this series my concern for the past that is lost to me is apparent, but so is my concern for the future and the losses that will come. And although this work mythologizes the past and present it also plays games with them. It winks, pokes and inverts - suggesting joyousness - mixed with the loss and regret that accompanies us all.

About the Artist:
Priya Kambli

Priya Kambli was born in India. She moved to the United States at age 18 carrying her entire life in one suitcase that weighed about 20 lbs. She began her artistic career in the States, and her work has always been informed by the loss of her parents, her experience as a migrant, and an archive of family photographs and artifacts she brought with her to America. For the past decade, this archive has been her primary source material in creating bodies of work which explore the migrant narrative and challenges of cross-cultural understanding.

Website: priyakambli.com
Instagram: @Kambli.Priya
Venmo: @Aaron-Fine-11