Diptych: Threshold I & II, 2023. Acrylic on linen, diptych. 2 panels, each 60 × 80 cm.
Lot 019 · Paintings
Diptych: Threshold I & II
Priya Mehta
Year
2023
Medium
Acrylic on linen, diptych
Dimensions
2 panels, each 60 × 80 cm
Estimate
NZD 9,000–13,000
The two panels of this diptych are conceived as a single work — a threshold that the viewer crosses in the act of looking. The left panel is warm: ochre, sienna, the colour of the Indian subcontinent seen from above. The right panel is cool: grey-green, the colour of the Tasman Sea on a winter morning. Between them, a narrow band of white — the threshold itself — that is simultaneously a division and a connection. The work was made in Auckland in the winter of 2023 and is among the most resolved of Mehta's recent paintings.
Artist
Priya Mehta
Priya Mehta (b. 1989, Mumbai) studied at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai before completing her MFA at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2015. She relocated to Auckland in 2019 and has since developed a practice that draws on the experience of migration, displacement and belonging. Working in acrylic on linen, she creates large-scale works that use the threshold — the doorway, the border, the horizon — as a recurring formal and conceptual motif. Her work has been exhibited in India, the United Kingdom and New Zealand and is held in several private collections internationally.