KAMBLI, PRIYA

Priya Kambli (Indian, b. 1975)
Eye (Muma and Maushi) from the Buttons for Eyes series, 2019
Archival Pigment Print
10 x 14 inch image on 11 x 15 inch paper
Signed Edition of 30
$400 

In Eye (Muma and Maushi) from the Buttons for Eyes series, Priya Kambli explores her own personal narrative. Prompted by her mother’s playful question, “Do you have eyes or buttons for eyes?” Kambli delves into the ways our vision can be literally and metaphorically obscured. Using different overlaid textures as well as photographs from her own family archive, Kambli examines the depths of personal—and cultural— memory. The political implications of the piece are especially nuanced. Kambli writes: “In Buttons for Eyes, I explore broader cultural debates around migration and identity, particularly as they have been recast in the dramatically changed context of anti- immigrant rhetoric now amplified at the highest levels of government, and which has altered the context in which migrant voices like mine are heard.”

Priya Kambli holds a BFA from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette (1997), and an MFA from the University of Houston, Texas (2000). Her work has been the subject of a number of solo exhibitions in the Central United States and included in exhibitions at Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh; Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York; Houston Center for Photography; Photography Resource Center at Boston University; SF Camerawork, San Francisco, and others. Since 2000, Kambli has taught at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri.