Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

Supriya James

"Extraction"

This large, multi-layered landscape painting depicting the Essequibo River in Guyana, South America, via its many shades of purple, "fleshy" trees, drip marks and sgrafitto, explores the reimagining of visual space and cultural hybridity. Reflections of water explore the abundant potentiality as metaphors for temporality, identity and ancestral history. The sublime images of plants' root systems symbolically transport the artist's memories and stories of ancestors.

“I see the world in heightened colour and react to it with raw emotion: as a painter, colour has vibrational qualities for me and it affects me in multi-sensory ways. When I paint with ground turmeric, for instance, I can taste it. When I paint with green paint, I smell the fresh pine trees and blue paint conjures up the touch of sweet breezes on my skin.This large, multi-layered landscape painting depicting the Essequibo River in Guyana, South America, via its many shades of purple, "fleshy" trees, drip marks and sgrafitto, explores the reimagining of visual space and cultural hybridity. Reflections of water explore the abundant potentiality as metaphors for temporality, identity and ancestral history. The sublime images of plants' root systems symbolically transport my memories and stories of ancestors.”