Undoing Of The Mask No: 2, mixed yarn, 22" x 30" by Kaviya Ravi
Revelry Gallery is eager to host Louisville artist Kaviya Ravi for her first solo show! வண்ணமயம் / VANNAMAYAM (pronounced Vunna-ma-yum), means Colorful in the language Tamil, the artist's native tongue. VANNAMAYAM is a collection that explores the idea of letting our colorful, messy and chaotic emotions spill out in the process of finding our true selves. Please join us for the opening of VANNAMAYAM on Friday March 11th, from 6-9 pm.
Kaviya attributes her intense love for color to her vibrant Indian heritage where the symbolism of color intertwines with everyday life, faith and even politics. Color plays a very different role in the artist's life today. She uses it not in a symbolic way but rather as a source to connect back to her Indian roots in a positive conflict free way. A tool for visibility as a brown immigrant woman, as a medium to work through traumas of being raised in deeply patriarchal culture, and the various societal pressures and expectations enforced from the day of birth, solely based on one's gender.
"Most of us, at some point in time, exist behind a mask, often times pretty and smooth from the outside. Existing within these boundaries gets us praise and in the artist's case the status of a “good girl”. But behind these masks, there are so many emotions that occur. They bubble and ripple and are waiting to spill out. The process to self discover, often times, is to surrender to the this process and to let it all spill out. The positive, the negative and everything in between." -- Kaviya Ravi
Kaviya utilizes her visceral reaction to colors, and textiles for their fluidity, ability to absorb and transform, beads for their hardness and femininity. The pieces are tufted and sewn some times over shiny acrylic. The tufting process in itself is a form of release for the artist. “The act is so violent, punching through this white fabric devoid of anything, by force, to leave behind a piece of beautiful hand dyed yarn”. Every piece evolves and grows as the artist works through and understands her emotions of the day. It seldom ends up looking the way it was intended in the beginning, but always colorful, imperfect and beautiful in its own right.
Through VANNAMAYAM, Kaviya hopes for the viewer to use their reaction to colors and the emotions that it invokes to let it all out into the world to be whoever they were meant to be.