Jamia | Studio takes over Depree Gallery

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Until Feb. 9, faculty member and art department chair, Katherine Sullivan, will have her new body of work on view at the De Pree Art Center and Gallery. The newly completed body of work “Jamia | Studio.” is made up of paintings on canvas and paper, which a majority of was completed during Sullivan’s fall 2017 sabbatical, but some pieces have been finished within the new year.

This body of work encompasses three other related series that focus on the culture of India. Inspired by her year abroad in New Delhi as a Fulbright Scholar, the artist and professor weaves together motifs of Western and Indian culture, while capturing movement, along with light and shadows.

The work is vivid, using bright hues of yellow, orange and red. The body of work is a visual treat that leaves viewers speechless.

In the first series, “Docile Bodies,” Sullivan focuses on abstractions of the body to create new forms, subject to external and internal controls real and imagined, physical and psychic.

The “Jaima” and “Darśan” series juxtapose different cultural and period-specific painting methods to reflect the country’s shifting power dynamics. Such painting techniques employed are direct and indirect. As the relationship between background and foreground changes, different hierarchical relationships are suggested, not only between East and West, but also between color and value, line and form and painterly and graphic technique, while boundaries are explored and pushed.