Jai Chuhan: Small Paintings

Small Paintings is a captivating collection of paintings by Indian-born British artist Jai Chuhan that explores themes of love, alienation, and the psychological tensions between genders. The paintings evoke a sense of voyeurism and intimacy, with their small scale creating a feeling of privacy and vulnerability. The book includes a foreword by Donald Ryan and an essay by Hannah Marsh that contextualizes the exhibition and highlights Chuhans key artistic concerns.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 124 pages
Publication date: 26 October 2023
Publisher: Hurtwood Press

Small Paintings presents the gestural, intimate, and hauntingly beautiful paintings by Indian-born British artist Jai Chuhan from her solo exhibition at Qrystal Partners, London.

The book showcases the art created for her solo exhibition of the same name at Qrystal Partners in London in the summer of 2023.

Chuhan often depicts lone figures in indistinct, nebulous interiors, exploring love and alienation. In other works, couples are huddled together, potentially locked in an embrace. The paintings evoke the psychological tensions between genders, agency, and subjection, the familiar and the unreal.

Their small scale creates a sense of voyeurism, reminiscent of what is felt when one looks through a window. Glimpses of bodies are shown in expressive poses that speak to moments of privacy, intimacy, and vulnerability.

Chuhan emigrated to London with her family in the late 1960s and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in the 1970s. Her practice engages deeply with histories of painting as she navigates transculturalism and the female gaze.

Her influences, such as Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, and Francis Bacon, are evident in her richly coloured and textured works.

But, Chuhan's position is distinctly different; her perspective refuses bravado and probes into ideas of empathy.

Donald Ryan, co-founder of Qrystal Partners and Small Paintings' curator, contributes a foreword contextualising the exhibition and delineating Chuhan's key artistic concerns.

In her essay, Hannah Marsh, assistant curator of contemporary British art at the Tate, ruminates on the idea of being seen, holding space, and how Chuhan's art speaks on its own terms.

Weight: 560g
Dimension: 235 x 210 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780903696760