Generations is the latest body of work by Indianapolis artist Priya Wittman. The exhibit features canvas pieces with acrylic gouache as well as patterns created on grid paper with marker. It is the grid patterns that have taken Wittman’s attention recently, as she realized they had become mainstays in her artistic practice. What “initially felt like doodles” developed into starting points for reliable inspiration over many years whenever she’d spent a while outside her studio.

Many of the grid paper pieces follow mandala-like trajectories, as they play between fore and background shapes. The sense throughout Generations is a trick of the eye— flush angles of bright colors and mixed media windows might shift and rearrange themselves slightly as you try to study them.

While some patterns evoke calm through meditative repetition, others hang off-kilter or are jarringly colorful. The artwork fits within a larger theme that Wittman has been exploring of late: anxiety within the fundamentally human search for meaning and belonging. The generative nature of repeating cycles is Wittman’s portrayal of the experience of time, which contains in itself “opposing characteristics” and “dualities.”

Keep. Acrylic, gesso, mixed media on board. 30” x 30”

Generations plays with this presence and lack of security. Without giving the viewer a straight answer, the artwork is “both subjective and objective,” “soft and flexible, but also rigid and concrete,” “at once circular and linear.” The opposing, balancing forces that we all hold in tension psychologically find themselves represented in Wittman’s pieces, acting as windows into her own method of representing and understanding her own reality.

Sky Chart. Acrylic gouache on canvas. 20” x 20”

Generations by Priya Wittman will be on display in the Harrison Center’s Gallery Annex for the month of April. The exhibit can be viewed by appointment as well as in our online gallery, where all pieces are available for purchase.