Rita Louis

Lost Landscapes – Between Memory and Medium 

Rita Louis is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work traverses the delicate boundaries between memory and place. Her series ‘Lost Landscapes’ emerges from a deeply personal narrative of displacement, creating visual poems that speak to both individual and collective experiences of belonging.

Working primarily with Indian ink, watercolor, and salt, Louis creates abstract landscapes that hover between recognition and dissolution. Her technique is particularly noteworthy in its innovative use of salt as both medium and metaphor – a substance that, like memory itself, both preserves and erodes. The resulting works exist in a liminal space, where landscapes are simultaneously forming and fading, much like the ephemeral nature of remembered spaces.

In pieces such as ‘Buried Sky’ and ‘Blue Moon,’ Louis demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how medium can embody meaning. Her predominant use of blue creates a unifying visual language throughout the series, suggesting both water and sky, depth and infinity. The works are characterized by their nebulous qualities, where forms emerge and recede in a constant state of flux, mirroring the artist’s exploration of fragmentary memories and shifting identities.

Louis’s artistic process is highly intuitive, yet reveals a calculated understanding of material behavior. Her manipulation of water-based mediums creates compositions that appear both controlled and spontaneous. The layering technique she employs builds depth while maintaining transparency, allowing viewers to perceive multiple dimensions within each piece – much like the layered nature of memory itself.

What distinguishes Louis’s work is its ability to transform personal narrative into universal experience. While rooted in her own history of movement between Kuwait, India, and the UK, her abstractions operate on a more profound level, where landscape becomes a vehicle for exploring the psychological territory of displacement. The works reveal themselves gradually, much like memories surfacing from the subconscious, rewarding sustained viewing with ever-deeper layers of meaning.

In ‘Lost Landscapes,’ Rita Louis advances contemporary discourse around identity and place-making through works that are both technically accomplished and conceptually rich. Her practice demonstrates how abstract art can communicate complex narratives of displacement while maintaining visual poetry and material innovation. These works invite viewers into spaces that are simultaneously familiar and strange, much like the landscapes of memory themselves.

Priya Jai

Artist & Curator

Priya Jai is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans painting, sculpture, theater, photography, and fashion design. She pursued her artistic training at the prestigious Viswa Bharathi University in West Bengal, where she studied under renowned artists Vinod Bihari Mukherji and Ramkinkar Baij at Santiniketan.

Her early works, which earned recognition from the Central Lalita Kala Akademi, focused on social themes, particularly exploring the lives of marginalized communities and the complexities of urban poverty. The Santiniketan experience profoundly influenced her artistic philosophy, fostering her belief that art transcends physical spaces.

Priya has exhibited extensively, with notable solo shows at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Nehru Art Gallery (2002), and the Lalitha Kala Akademi in Bangalore (2004). As a curator and project manager, she actively shapes contemporary art discourse through innovative exhibitions and collaborations.

Currently based in Palakkad, Priya continues to expand her artistic horizons through international collaborations while maintaining strong connections to Kerala’s cultural landscape. Her work reflects a deep understanding of regional artistic traditions while engaging with global contemporary art practices.