WILLIAMSTOWN—The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is pleased to present the exhibition Pallavi Sen: Colour Theory. Pallavi Sen invites us into an imagined domestic interior, each quadrant of which corresponds to a different but interconnected part of a home.
Through partnerships with writers, students, and other artists, the project reflects the key tenets of Sen’s practice, namely teaching, collaborative making, and the nurturing of life. In this way, the various areas of the gallery also serve as stage sets to be activated by the artist and performers throughout the run of the exhibition.
Pallavi Sen: Colour Theory is co-curated by Nicholas Liou, former Mellon Curatorial Fellow at WCMA, and Roz Crews, Associate Curator of Programs. The exhibition runs from Sept. 20 through Dec. 22.
“Pallavi’s work spans multiple media and ten years of the artist’s practice from 2014 to 2024,” Liou said. “The artist’s love of materials, teaching, and constant experimentation comes through not only in the artwork she has created but also in the collaborations with friends, fellow artists, former students, and more, that have made this exhibition possible. It is especially meaningful that one of these partnerships is with the Brooklyn-based design studio and publisher Small Editions on an accompanying publication that features essays and images of work in the exhibition and also provides insight into Pallavi’s larger artistic practice.”
“We are particularly eager to see Pallavi’s works come to life in the galleries,” said Crews, who has been developing activations of the exhibition. Programs include a residency by the Urban Bush Women from Oct. 6–10, a still-life drawing workshop followed by a conversation with the artist on Oct. 25, and a Curatorial Close Look tour on Oct. 26.
The bold colors, together with the exhibition’s title, evoke an art classroom and a place of creativity and play while a mix of furniture, paintings, tiles, self-marbled paper, and other media reflects the interdisciplinary material nature of Sen’s art.
“We are delighted to highlight the engaging practice of one of our very own faculty members whose work exemplifies the primary principles of the Williams College Museum of Art— teaching and collaboration,” Pamela Franks, Class of 1956 Director of the Williams College Museum of Art, said.
The artist’s watercolors are themselves intricate renderings of interior spaces populated by meaningful individuals and objects from her life. These private references join allusions to literature and history, revealing her keen interest in how the personal and the communal are interwoven into a rich tapestry.
Sen’s video work, on view in an adjacent gallery, will feature the artist’s own body in motion. These brief clips, ranging from 2014 to 2024, explore dance, singing, music, gesture, art-making, and self-representation in whimsical ways. The shorts originated as a way of making spontaneous work at a time when the artist did not have her own studio space, producing a vibrant blend of artistry and the everyday that saturates the entire exhibition.
About the Artist
Pallavi Sen was born in New Delhi in 1989, and spent her childhood between Delhi and Bombay. An alumna of St. Xavier’s College, Bombay, she received her MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from the Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, and a BFA from the Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus, Ohio. Sen has participated in various prestigious artist residencies, including MacDowell, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, PICA’s Creative Exchange Lab, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Shandaken Projects, Mildred’s Lane, Ox-Bow, ACRE, and the Yale Norfolk School of Art, among others.
Currently, she serves as the Assistant Professor of Multiples + Distributed Art at Williams College, Massachusetts, and is the Dean at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine. Pallavi splits her time between Brooklyn, New York, and Williamstown, Massachusetts, where she lives and works.
On View at WCMA
Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art
The first museum retrospective dedicated to Teddy Sandoval (1949–1995), a central figure in Los Angeles’s queer and Chicanx artistic circles and an active participant in U.S. and international avant-garde movements, assembles works by the artist across many media alongside those by other queer, Latinx, and Latin American artists who share similar graphic sensibilities. Through Dec. 22
Object Lab
Object Lab is a hybrid gallery-classroom that visualizes the Williams College liberal arts curriculum through the museum collection. Through Dec. 22
SO–IL \ WCMA: Building A New Museum
The exhibition, organized by the architects of SO-IL, who have designed the new Williams College Museum of Art building, showcases what the new WCMA will look like when it opens in 2027. Through Dec. 22
Pallavi Sen: Colour Theory
Colour Theory is an immersive installation of new work by interdisciplinary artist and Williams College assistant professor of art, Pallavi Sen. Sept. 20–Dec. 22
Cracking the Cosmic Code: Numerology in Medieval Art
The idea that numbers emanate sacred significance, and connect the past with the future, is prehistoric and global. This exhibition aims to elucidate medieval relationships among numbers, events, and artworks. WCMA’s medieval and Renaissance artworks from the 5th to 17th centuries reveal numerical patterns as they relate to architecture, literature, gender, and timekeeping. Through Dec. 22
Remixing the Hall
Borrowing a term from DJ culture, “Remixing” describes WCMA curators’ process of selecting objects from the collection that highlight multivalent correspondences between form and
meaning in art. Through Dec. 22
About Williams College Museum of Art
The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) creates and inspires transformative experiences that are integral to a liberal arts education, lifelong learning, and human connection. The museum catalyzes cross-disciplinary inquiry through art; advances the academic and experiential preparation of arts leaders; enriches the cultural ecosystem of the Berkshires; engages artists; and creates a learning community that spurs new thinking, creative activity, and civic engagement. WCMA draws on the diverse perspectives and collaborative ethos of the College to enliven the more than 15,000 works in its growing collection.
Plans are now in progress to construct WCMA’s first purpose-built home, designed by the internationally recognized Brooklyn-based firm SO–IL. The design, unveiled in March 2024, blends sustainable, living architecture with the Berkshires landscape while creating a teaching museum for the entire campus and a prominent new gateway to the College and Williamstown. The new WCMA is projected to open in 2027.
Currently located in Lawrence Hall on Main Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on the Williams College campus, the museum is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, visit artmuseum.williams.edu.
Images at top: (Left) Pallavi Sen, Cones, 2024. Watercolour on paper, 15 x 15 in. (Right) 35th Birthday, 2024. Watercolour on paper, 18 x 24 in.
Press Contacts
Rebecca Dravis, Communications Manager, [email protected]; (413) 597-3127
Sara Ory, Polskin Arts, [email protected]; (212) 593-5815