Exhibitions

CHELSEA VELAGA: GHOST BRAHMAN

Open Gallery (Lipscomb University) / 507 Hagan St. September 7, 2019 - September 30, 2019

Chelsea Velaga

Ghost Brahman explores the tacit distance between a lived versus an assumed identity: is one’s biology alone enough to grant them access to a culture’s iconography? is the appreciation/appropriation dichotomy fully called into question if the artist is of the “correct” descent? who or what determines an individual’s access to a visual reservoir independent of their own making? these thematic undertones seem to at once supplement and undercut the aesthetic experience of the show, while implicating the viewer in a sort of shared tourism. ultimately, this tension connects the otherwise disparate triad of fibrous, waxen, and silken materials used throughout the work. the compositions are similarly varied, and project the directness of portraiture alongside the chaos of nonfigurative tapestries. the presence of different south asian simulacra ranges from subtle to overt, all the while retaining an illustrative quality despite textural variation