Congratulations to Professor Priya Kambli

Our own Priya Kambli has been chosen by the Missouri Arts Council as the recipient of the Missouri Arts Award for Individual Artist – our State’s highest honor in the arts. “Honorees are recognized for their profound and lasting contributions to Missouri’s artistic and cultural legacy.”

The press release says:

Individual Artist | Priya Kambli, Kirksville

Internationally recognized photographer whose art is suffused with themes of loss, love, and memory across generations of family, inspired by the archive of family heirlooms, artworks, and photographs she brought with her to the U.S. when she migrated from India at age 18.

Congratulations to Professor Kambli!

Honors and Publications for Professor Priya Kambli

Truman Photography Professor Priya Kambli has had a collection of photographs added to the collection of the Duke University Library.  She received the 2018 ADA Collection Award for Women Documentarians and has been added to the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University. In addition her work has been added to the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College of Chicago. Examples of the collected work can be seen through both links.

This spring Professor Kambli was the featured artist at the Ridderhof Martin Gallery at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  In addition her work has been featured in two publications, Art India and The California Sunday Magazine, where she and other artists’ photographs were used to illustrate an article titled “Freedom is _______.”

Last Week to See

The fall faculty show, “New Work by Truman State Art Faculty,” in the University Gallery and the Charlyn Gallery (formerly known as the Side Gallery)  will be up through Friday of this week (10/5).  If you haven’t caught the photographs and installation by Priya Kambli in the main gallery and “Grown-Up Games” by Danielle Yakle in the Charlyn Gallery, you are in for a treat.

Above and below, work by Priya Kambli, professor of art.

And below, students Josh Fackler and Josh Fish enjoy Instructor Danielle Yakle’s “Grown-Up Games.”

Priya Kambli to Speak in New Orleans

If you are in New Orleans this coming weekend, you should take the opportunity to hear Truman Professor Priya Kambli talk about her work at the Louisiana State Museum at The Old US Mint.  She will be speaking as part of the PHOTONOLA 2017 event.  Priya’s talk is on Sunday, December 10th, at 10 am, and it is free and open to the public.  She also has a solo exhibition in New Orleans, at the Staple Goods Gallery from December 9th-January 7th.

Louisiana State Museum Old US Mint                               Staple Goods
400 Esplanade Avenue                                                      1340 St. Roch Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70116                                                         New Orleans, LA 70117
504-568-6993                                                                           504-908-7331

Hours: Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 4:30pm                         Hours: Sat + Sun, 12-5pm

 

From the PHOTONOLA 2017 website:

Priya Kambli’s artwork is intrinsically tied to her own family’s photographic legacy and her move at age 18, following the death of her parents, from India to the United States. Before she emigrated, she and her sister split their photographic inheritance in half. One portion remained in India, and the other was displaced along with Priya, in America. For the past decade, that archive of family photographs has been Priya’s primary source material in creating bodies of work which explore the migrant narrative and experience; albeit through a personal lens. Priya’s work has always touched upon universal themes, with the potential to start a dialogue about cultural differences and universal similarities. In the last year those private references and broad themes have taken on a new public significance that requires a creative response, by delving deeper into her own immigrant narrative, engaging with its personal but increasingly, if accidentally, political context.

In this free public presentation, Priya Kambli will discuss her bodies of work which explore the migrant narrative and experience as seen through a personal lens, beginning with her book Color Falls Down, and continuing through her latest project Buttons for Eyes.

 

Professor Kambli Honored

Professor of Photography Priya Kambli has continued to collect recognition and honors as she comes off her sabbatical year:

The Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University Bloomington will host a lecture by Priya Kambli on Thursday, November 2nd, from 5:30 to 6:30 pm.  The lecture is in conjunction with the exhibition Kinship, curated by IU’s Assistant Professor of Photography Elizabeth M. Claffey and Gallery Director Betsy Stirratt.

Kinship examines the influence of family life on personal and cultural identity. Each artist delves into the complex nature of family structures to express how it shapes internal dialogue and personal narrative.

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Photography Professor Priya Kambli exhibits in Jaipur, India

Professor Priya Kambli’s photographs were displayed at the JaipurPhoto show in late February/early March.  JaipurPhoto is an international open-air travel photography festival held every February in the Pink City.

For the 2017 edition, JaipurPhoto’s Artistic Director, Lola Mac Dougall, invited Federica Chiocchetti, Founding Director of the photo-literary platform Photocaptionist, to be the Guest Curator and respond to the theme of wanderlust. As a Westerner, who works on the relationship between photography and fictions, images and words, and who had to ‘imagine’ and ‘study’ Jaipur and India from far away, Chiocchetti felt inclined to search for photographic works that subtly connected the notions of travel with ideas of the imaginary and the unexpected.

Professor Kambli’s work on display in Jaipur.  These are from her series “Kitchen Gods,” which takes inspiration from her own family’s photographs from India.

As the festival writeup proclaimed: “In this unique family pantheon, Kambli labours to afford her ancestors the same treatment as given to kitchen deities. The act of transforming simple snapshots into gods that watch over the nourishment of the family makes this series–although aesthetically rooted in India- a universal story.”

Priya Kambli is back in the classroom in the fall of 2017, after taking a sabbatical to work on her art full time.  Congratulations on the show, and welcome back!

 

Truman Newspaper features two ART professors

The Index, Truman’s student newspaper, featured articles on two Art Department professors in their March 24th edition.  Jim Jereb was featured in a tribute article about his retirement. Jim, who has taught at Truman for  26 years, will be moving to Big Horn, Wyoming, to take up a curatorial position at the Brinton Museum there.  He will also head the printmaking section of the museum’s new education center.

The second article featured Priya Kambli, our professor of photography, who presented her work at the St. Louis Art Museum.  The symposium, “If it Wasn’t for the Women: Women of Color Behind and Through the Lens,” was a Women’s History Month event.  “If It Wasn’t for the Women” is a free annual program that brings special attention to women of color and their experiences in the arts.  This year the focus was on photography.

Mami 2015: A recent work by Professor Priya Kambli.

Mami 2015: A recent work by Professor Priya Kambli.