Jai Chuhan: Small Paintings

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.

Small Paintings 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 themes of 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. However, 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.