Selz: When did you know that you were going to become an artist?

Jayavant: In an academic context, the decision to become an artist didn’t happen until my very last years of undergraduate school at the Ohio State University. I had been planning on being an English/ Creative Writing major but found myself taking art classes whenever I could; eventually acquiring my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting/ Drawing.

S: What types of art classes?

J: Studio and art history classes with an emphasis on theory.

S: What type of work were you making?

J: In 1996/97, I was building large scale, (six by eight feet), canvases and was strictly an abstract expressionist oil painter. I was experimenting. When it was time to find my focus, I scaled down the work drastically and even removed paint from my vocabulary. I had been taking a printmaking class and as a result my prints became more painterly and my paintings became
more constructed. I continued building my own stretchers with sturdy canvas and made tiny collages on paper. Instead of paint I implemented different materials such as string, fabric, wax, pins, photocopies of such materials, etc. I was trying to renegotiate and redefine what painting was to me.

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Galleries-Three-shows-at-Meridian-Gallery-3218280.php

Excerpt of review: ‘Form +, Art with a sense of history.’

“Form+s remaining works, exhibited in less quirky settings, are slightly more insular. In spite of the self-referential qualities of the pieces on paper by Todd Bura or Prajakti Jayavant, who both account for every line or crease in their compositions, there is an overarching sense of history: the immediate history of the artist’s hand and that of the artists’ awareness of their place within the broader timeline of art history. As a result, the throwback atmosphere of Meridian’s space both complements and highlights the beautiful subtleties of these works by a somewhat underrepresented contingent of contemporary Bay Are artists.” -Ava Jancar

San Francisco Bay Guardian Volume 42, Issue 28

 

“Prajakti Jayavant’s painted paper constructions pose provocative questions about the limits of difference and our capacity to frame experience meaningfully. On the verge of sheer materiality, her works betray the barest echoes of formal intent, and thereby attune our awareness to the wonder of artistic possibility.” – Lawrence Rinder

Copyright © Lawrence Rinder 2008