The Brooklyn Rail

Stitch by stitch and grain by grain, Purvai Rai has created an incredible body of work for her debut solo exhibition at James Fuentes. Gestures of Infinity implores viewers to ponder the practices in their own lives, ones that are cultivated, and informed by culture. Manhattan is an island of kinetic energy, no time to slow down. But Rai does not conform to the city standard; instead, she transforms the gallery into a zone that exudes careful attentiveness.

The Yale-educated, New Delhi–born artist has been vocal about her support for the farmer’s protests on the Delhi border in 2020. This conflict brought her back to her ancestral village of Nawanpind Sardaran, where learning about the land led to an art practice rooted in Punjab. The place became a living museum to inform and inspire her work, and one of the works in the exhibition, Grain by Grain 1 (2024) was made in collaboration with a person from her village. Now based in New York, Rai’s work continues to include elements of her spiritual background in Sikhism, Bhakti, and Sufi traditions. Such cultural and spiritual influences tie together each unique piece in this show, from textile to oil painting.

A large portion of the gallery is taken up by a wool embroidery piece laid out on the floor, surrounded by basmati rice. The rice is poured and dispersed tenderly by hand in a thick line around the textile. Grain by Grain 1 employs multiple shades of blue wool embroidered on burlap to create geometric patterns in three panels stitched together. Rai’s practice is grounded in spirituality, utilizing repeated motion as a carrier of memory, care, and resistance. The deep blues of Rai’s works are all-consuming: the sheer intensity of indigos pull you in, and the whites bring you back. Patterns lead into one another through each panel of textile, growing from small designs to intricate larger ones. It’s as if the scales of a fish morphed into an urban map.

The show includes paintings, textiles, and works on paper, all linked by a spiritual connection. Five acrylic works on paper, each titled Grain by Grain (all 2023), hang on the back wall, identical in size, using an indigo-colored blue on white. It looks like acrylic paint has been sprayed over dispersed grains of rice on white paper, connecting the trace of the grains to the actual rice that surrounds the work on the floor.

Hanging opposite one another are two large abstractions with matching titles that converse over Grain by Grain 1 like yin and yang. Silence 1 (2025) dominates the conversation, its chaos and intensity demanding attention. The surface of the work is dominated by scratches and dripping paint that is evident from afar; in the dark bottom right of the painting it seems like something tried to claw its way out of the corner. As if a tornado tore across the composition, a messy white streak reaches from the bottom left to the top right. Meanwhile a washed-out blue oval in the top left resembles an eye. All in all, it reads like a storm baring its teeth; Silence 1 roars.

If that roar is a reaction to the tumult of contemporary society, then Silence 2 (2024) might be the breath of acceptance. Only in accepting a circumstance can one change it—much like the reaction to the farmer’s protest being communal efforts to care for each other, collaborating to feed one another, and to create. Silence 2 exudes a calming presence—its colors are muted and tranquil, and the texture is mostly flat. The composition is split into three horizontal sections through which drips trickle down from the top, a soft white with long runny streaks bleeding into the light, washed out blue below it. These paintings operate as visual conversations, saying what cannot be said, asking the viewer, “What more is wanted? What is needed?”

Through the artist’s countless acts of repetition, Gestures of Infinity highlights Rai’s deepest cares and attentions. The expressions that come from the work speak more loudly than one may understand when glancing through the mesmerizing colors and patterns. Rai’s works are markers of a culture and a community, a reminder to be conscious of the world that surrounds us and the ways in which we fill our busy days.