Jasneet Pritam

Home: Reminiscing landscapes

Home. Leaving everything behind and moving to Canada has been a rollercoaster of emotions, and all my recent artworks have been exploring these very emotions in diverse contexts. From dissecting and capturing my happy place to exploring how this pandemic has made the home feel even farther away. This Monotype Print was an ode to the beautiful landscapes of Kenya that stay close to my heart always. I wanted to capture and appreciate each element that together created this feeling of "home" and in the process hoped to convert nostalgia into familiarity to help accept a new "home".

Family Haircut

Home. Through this staged photograph, I wanted to explore the complexities and subjectivities of the word "home". As an international student, accepting the choice of making a very big move to a new, unfamiliar place was bound to have its challenges. Leaving back all the spaces, the family, and the friends that were my home and turning an empty dorm room into a home was bittersweet. This photograph was meant to capture my most recent definition of home, in acceptance that this definition will always be fluid. Ever-changing.

Artist Biography

Jasneet Pritam is a Kenyan-born Artist with South Asian roots. She is pursuing a BFA Honours at the University of Calgary. Jasneet has accomplished various studio-focused classes that have inspired her current practice. As a result, her expertise in painting, printmaking, sculpture, model creation, 3D digital design, manufacturing, and the iterative design process is continually expanding. The medium is limitless in Jasneet’s practice and education, she believes in letting process dictate medium and looks to break conventional methods of image portrayal. Through conceptual clues that raise existential concerns, she aspires to create at a scale that affects real change at the community level.

Artist statement

Entropy, Agency, and Impact. Entropy and process. I want to embrace a gradual decline into disorder and chaos. Impact and medium. I work mainly in sculptural, print and digital mediums. In all mediums, I use both as an ideation tool and a method of creating visual work that helps animate my visual interrogations further. Agency and concept. I strive to focus on the intersection between architectural exploration and artistic expression. In these pieces, I am exploring an understanding of the word “home”.

How did you start your art practice?

I have always been passionate about art and design. So in a way, my practice started almost six years ago when I submitted my work for my first group exhibition back in Kenya called Art Fever. I started to develop this interest with consistent practice over the years. However, I would consider the last three years as more significant. Enrolling in my BFA allowed for a specialized focus on my art. I learnt techniques and experimented physically and conceptually in ways that allowed me to explore my interest in art and architecture simultaneously.

Instagram: @justneetart