Uma Rani Iyli

Born in Bangalore, India, in 1974, UMA RANI IYLI’s studio practice has been based in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1996. She received her foundation art education at the College of Fine Arts, Bangalore. At 21, she moved to the United States and continued her studies at California College of the Arts, graduating in 2003 with a BFA in Sculpture. In the past few years, Uma’s career has launched with various nationwide exhibitions including the New York Chelsea based JanKossens Gallery, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, and stARTup Art Fairs in San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 2018, Uma’s work was featured by the Zellerbach Foundation and highlighted as one of three Under The Radar contemporary artists by ArtSlant. Most recently, New York based Vogelsang Gallery launched her work at Miami Scope Art Fair, and she was nominated for the 2018 Tosa Award and the 2019 SECA award. Her fiber works were highlighted in the 2019 exhibition Woven Stories at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History.

Artist Statement

My work serves to build bridges between my Indian roots and contemporary culture. Each series allows me the opportunity to embrace my worlds. They act as avenues for others to merge culture and time in their own way. Time-based meditative processes inform my art. Examining ancient cultures and focusing on notions of women’s work, my scalable artwork investigates linking these practices with our contemporary context. Each line that crosses another echoes traditions of weaving and storytelling from my heritage while simultaneously representing the networks of technology that we depend on daily. 

My studio practice embraces the idea of up-cycling discarded media. Elements from one artwork ensue into building blocks for the next. Q-tips serve as a continuum material in my practice as they are the brushes for my paintings, evolve into layered abstracted imagery in my photo-based work, and transformed into three-dimensional objects in my garland installations. With my fiber works, I practice the meditative spinning of my ancestors with leftover threads sourced directly from Sari Looms during my annual visits to India. These works serve as a foundation of security from which great potential grows.

Visit Uma’s website