My early poetic woven works pursued formal order and innate symmetries, a conventional approach then displaced by my choice to narrate through open warps in order to suggest equivocation, deviation and indeterminacy as valid variables in any design. However, the rafoo-inspired mixed-media works have a very different stamp of immediacy. The images are raw, granular, seem to disclose even while remaining ambivalent – their internal structure is exteriorized, the cartography of the joints, seams and junctions is consciously delineated. While the visualization does camouflage and conceal, it is simultaneously a categorical expansion, a thorough acceptance of certain material defects and limitations that I earlier did not accommodate in my artistic vision. ‍ ‍

Priya Ravish Mehra was born and pursued a degree in textiles  in India,  later studied tapestry weaving in the United Kingdom. She worked in Delhi until her passing in 2018. She actively worked with the rafoogars of Najibabad (her hometown) and conducted workshops on rafoogiri as an art form. Her baithaks were focused on engaging people towards an awareness of this art form. Her last solo exhibition was Presence in Absence , Threshold Gallery, New Delhi, India (2017). Her national and international participations include and Evidence Room, Khoj, International Artists' Association, New Delhi (2017), Poetics of Plurality, Site Art Space, Vadodara, Gujarat (2016), Threads, Alliance Francaise, New Delhi (2014), Resonance, RabindraBhavan, New Delhi (2005), 10th International Triennial of Tapestries, Lodz, Poland (2001), Dedicated to Mother Earth, British Council, New Delhi (1999), Weavers of the Pacific Rim, Taumata Art Gallery, Auckland (1993) and Palash, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi (1997).