Give Me Space

Accolades

Anousha Payne b. 1991, lives and works in London and graduated from Camberwell College of
Arts with a BFA in 2014. Recent exhibitions include Hawala at Paradise Row Projects (curated by
Shezad Dawood), Beyond Skin at Tube Culture Hall in Milan, and a second iteration of Vessels in
Athens. Upcoming shows include As she laughs, a collaborative exhibition with Anna Perach at
Cooke Latham, a solo show at Indigo Madder and a duo show at Public Gallery.

Statement

Anousha Payne’s work explores the human pursuit of spirituality in object form, as a form of
cultural expression that is distinct from religious symbolism. Through the process of psychic
automatism and free-association, she is interested in whether it is possible to imbue spirituality into
an object, and in the material qualities of religious or spiritual objects; how the material qualities of
a work impact our experience of them, and the processes by which they are made inform them.

Alongside this she is interested in the impact of domestic settings on our mental and spiritual well-
being, exploring this through subverted and animistic domestic furniture.

Another important element to her work is storytelling through simple gestures and expressions,
reflecting on human interaction and communication; this is expressed through visual explorations of
Tamil mythology and folklore, creating a personal narrative, and blurring the boundaries between
personal experience, fiction and myth. The deployment of bharathantyam hand gestures are used
of a way of connecting with cultural heritage, as well as being used for their known symbolic
meaning.

Often deploying a reptile skin, her ceramics are intended as hybrid objects, a reminder of the
fluidity and shared qualities between humans, animals, the natural world and inanimate objects,
questioning material hierarchies and values. This process seeks to build an aesthetic dialogue and
personal visual language as a meditative interaction.

www.anoushapayne.com
@anoushapayne