Payel Kundu
Bio:
I am a fourth year PhD student in the Neuroscience Program here at UIUC. I have had an interest and a passion for painting and drawing since the age of about 15. I took as many art classes as I could through high school, and continued to do so in college. I like painting mostly people and their experiences. I love to experiment with new materials. Art for me is often about exploration, reflection and experimentation. It brings me so much joy.
Artist statement:
I have always had a deep interest in the minds of others, and how they experience the world. I pursue this interest partially as a graduate student in neuroscience, and partially through my art. It is impossible to truly experience something through the eyes of someone else, but my work tries to capture the experiences of those around me, and inevitably, how I experience them as well through the lens of my depiction. My work often tends towards strange, surreal scenes and often includes real people from my life. Sometimes my work starts from an idea that has been lingering in my mind, and I build an image around the idea to express it. Sometimes my work is based on a full image that came into my mind already formed, perhaps from a dream or from daytime mind-wandering. To me, art is an outpouring of the astounding complexity and beauty of the brain. I love sharing my thoughts with others in this visual way, and I love seeing the contents of other people’s brains in the form of their art as well.
