Artist Talk: Priya Rama

Join us at the Westheimer Gallery for a special conversation with our May Gallery Artist, Priya Rama! This event is free and open to the public.

Priya Rama’s art is born from her chronic migraines. When one begins, along with the pain and pressure, colors and shapes appear in her mind’s eye. These get transformed into hyperchromatic paintings of resilience. Often, completing a painting acts as a release, reminding us that the mind can do more than just process pain: It can transform pain into beauty.

An abstract expressionist, Priya’s paintings highlight a spontaneous, intuitive, and personal mark-making, with rich color and palpable texture. Her paintings especially explore dualities– of pain/beauty, emphatic color/delicate brush lines, rich details/quiet resting spots, spontaneity/deliberate placement, translucency/opacity, and contemplation/assertion.

Priya thinks of her paintings as self-portraits, because as she says, “My art is part of me and I am part of my art”. She adds, “My paintings emerge from within. They are part of an ongoing conversation with myself that I have had since my childhood. The process is entirely natural, one that I cannot separate from myself”.
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Priya has been interviewed for CBS’ Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley, which aired on February 16, 2020, as well as WebMD. She has also been interviewed for multiple print and online publications, as well as radio, and has presented to several art therapy groups. Priya’s paintings can be found in private and corporate collections around the country.