Axioms

The term axiom refers to a presumed truth. It's used in mathematics and philosophy to describe an idea that’s generally accepted as true—something self-evident that doesn’t require proof. I wonder what an axiom would look like in the world of visuals and images. It seems to me that this might be impossible in a realm so inherently subjective. I’m using the term as a descriptor in my work to tease out the nature of optics—how we see, how we digest information, how we search for truth through the various images we consume on a daily basis. I like to ponder this question: by calling my painting Axiom, does it necessarily make it one?

Over the years, my works have interpreted images I find in the news cycle. But I’ve begun to expand my practice to look at historical images, film, and movies—how these sources also shape cultural identity and collective consciousness. I’ve also been looking at stock images, which I find speak to these ideas— I think of them as artifacts that will be left behind and discovered years into the future. There’s something intriguing to me about the fact that all of these image sources—though quite different—are able to function similarly. Some are designated as truth and documentation, while others are designated as fiction and storytelling. Yet they are, in many ways, interchangeable. They substitute for one another in how we use them to form our worldview and our cultural identity—how we perceive the world.

My hope is that my work creates a dialogue around this concept and the dilemma we face in a time where we are inundated by images, and where we’re constantly on the cusp of questioning what is real and what is fake. New technologies seem only to heighten our uncertainty and further disrupt our grasp on reality. And then we adjust again. Our threshold for understanding truth is more flexible than we know. I paint about this experience. To me, oil paint is the perfect medium for this—it can hover between reality and abstraction. Throughout the history of painting, the medium has spanned the functions of documentation, idealism, storytelling, and the complete obliteration of representation. I’m interested in the gymnastics, the vocabulary, and the range that paint application can bring to these questions.

I find it fascinating to think about how painting can be transformative in the same way that photography can be. I’m drawn to the idea that an image can be both invented and revealed, while also being completely obliterated within a painting. I’m always thinking about how my work can hover on the edge of legibility—how something can seem to appear clearly in one moment and then dissolve or disappear in another. I’m using the materiality of paint, along with its wide vocabulary—color, tonality, texture—to reflect on how we see, and to spark dialogue about perception in the 21st century.

All of the images I’m using come from different time periods and different contexts within India. I find it fascinating that when I remove the original context, certain residues remain. There’s something that lingers, and I’m interested in those lingering residues—those signifiers and markers that can both appear and disappear. Choosing images from India is also a personal way for me to understand something that feels both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I think this also speaks to a larger condition: images can feel simultaneously known and unknown. They can resemble something we’ve seen or believe to be true, while also being completely new or alien to us. I draw a thread between that experience of being a 21st-century being and my own relationship to this place on the other side of the world, where my family comes from.

Axiom, 2025, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

Paying attention to the edges

Lately, I’ve found myself caught up with a particular Rembrandt self-portrait. I am deeply inspired by him, and other Baroque masters like Vermeer, and their remarkable ability to conjure so much life on such intimate scales. There’s something undeniably powerful about the way they captured light, atmosphere, and emotion within small canvases. These portraits, painted at the height of realism before the invention of photography, reflect a kind of observation that feels pure, deliberate, and deeply human. I often wonder what it meant to see in a time before photography altered our visual vocabulary forever.

We can’t go back to that moment in history. The photographic image has not only changed how we see—it has changed what we expect to see. We are now steeped in a constant flood of imagery, and the way we process the world is inherently filtered through a photographic sensibility. And yet, I find something resonant in those early Baroque portraits. They feel like precursors to the photograph: intimate, glowing, and reverent toward light. Their scale—often comparable to modern photo prints—makes that comparison even more compelling.

This connection between old and new informs much of my current work. I find myself looking closely at found images, especially low-resolution, stock, and news images. These are photos of people I don’t know, often from places I’ve never been. And yet, there’s an implicit demand for connection—particularly because these images come from stories in the news, and represent places in India, where my ancestry and cultural heritage originate. There’s a subtle expectation that I should feel something when I see these faces. That expectation, whether externally imposed or internally felt, becomes a thread I pull at in my practice.

In examining these images, I notice the visual tropes that emerge. Zoomed in and pixelated, these faces begin to unravel—edges blur, color blocks appear, and yet, light remains the constant. There’s something poetic in that breakdown. It mimics the act of observation itself, which is never clean or whole. I spend time getting very close to these images, the way a painter might study a model or a mirror. It’s not unlike what Rembrandt did, but instead of looking at a physical subject, I’m looking at a digital ghost—a stranger mediated by compression and code.

What fascinates me most is how these contemporary images still echo art historical forms. Even within degraded pixels, I see classical lighting schemes, familiar poses, the soft geometry of a face rendered in shadow. These resonances remind me that visual culture is a continuum. The language of light and form persists, even when filtered through mass media, stock photography, or internet ephemera.

By engaging with these tropes—particularly those found in stock imagery rather than just news—I begin to understand how our collective subconscious is shaped. These types of images aren’t just documents; they’re carriers of cultural code. In this sense, they become ripe for interruption—for reinvestment with attention, observation, and care.

So I find myself drawing lines between Rembrandt’s gaze and my own. His was a gaze grounded in physical proximity, in personal presence. Mine is filtered through the anonymity of the screen. But both are acts of looking, of searching for meaning in a face. And it’s in that search—in the light, the shadow, the broken resolution—that I find the thread. It connects centuries, cultures, and conditions of seeing. That thread is the tapestry I’m trying to unravel and reweave through my work.

Rembrandt self-portrait, 1628, oil on panel, ~10 x 8 inches

Priya N. Green, White Noise 1, 2024, oil on canvas, 14 x 11 inches