Gallery Talk with Banks Violette and Ajay Kurian
March 20 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Gallery Talk: Banks Violette + Ajay Kurian, artist + writer
Date: March 20, 2025
Time: 6:00PM
Join us Thursday, March 20, at 6 PM for a gallery talk with artist Banks Violette and artist/writer Ajay Kurian. Violette and Kurian will guide guests through the exhibition, discussing its themes, materials, and cultural influences. The tour will explore Violette’s longstanding artistic concerns, including the darker undercurrents of American identity, such as the rise of fascism and how national romanticism feeds into nationalism. Following the tour, Kurian will moderate a discussion diving deeper into art, subcultures, and the creative evolution of Violette’s practice, expanding on how these themes have shaped his work over time, including Banks’ work addressing “whiteness” before it became a widely discussed topic.
About the Artist: Banks Violette
Banks Violette (b. 1973, Ithaca, NY) is known for his stark, immersive works that explore destruction, decay, and subcultural aesthetics. Influenced by heavy metal, skateboarding, and the occult, his practice spans drawing, sculpture, installation, and video, blurring the line between beauty and violence. His work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Whitney Museum, MoMA, and the Guggenheim and is held in major museum collections worldwide.
About the Moderator: Ajay Kurian
Ajay Kurian is an artist, educator, and writer. Kurian employs a fluid, multimedia vocabulary which aims to articulate the social and environmental conditions that govern both our worldly and transcendental faiths. He is the founder of NewCrits, a global platform for virtual studio mentorship for artists of all backgrounds and experience. Kurian lives in Brooklyn, New York. He holds a BA from Columbia University in Visual Arts and Art History. His work has been exhibited worldwide including the Whitney Museum, MoMA PS1, The Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany, and K11 in Shanghai, China. He is also Banks Violette’s former studio assistant.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to experience Violette’s work through a dynamic conversation between two artists.
Image of Banks — NR Magazine. Photographer: Jeton Bakalli. Stylist: Jungle Lin.
