The Whorled

Ciaccia Levi

Paris, France

October 18 – November 29, 2025

The Whorled - Ciaccia Levi - Exhibitions - PPOW

Srijon Chowdhury
XIII (detail), 2025
oil on linen
36 x 24 ins.
91.4 × 61 cm

Ciaccia Levi is pleased to present The Whorled, Srijon Chowdhury's fifth solo exhibition with the gallery. Known for his ability to weave together myth, intimacy, and cycles of nature, Chowdhury constructs a pictorial universe where personal stories, archetypal figures, and rhythms of growth and decay coexist and unfold side by side. The title The Whorled evokes both the spiral patterns of petals, leaves, and galaxies, as well as the resonance of a distorted world. This duality reflects the way the artist conceives his painting practice: as a system of correspondences, a porous engine of time in which symbols cross the threshold between the everyday and the mythical.

In this new body of work, the artist traces a broad spectrum of imagery: dense fields of flowers, where thousands of blossoms crowd the canvas, each stroke building into a hallucinatory surface; sunbursts and cosmic orbs radiating light and color, echoing both Blakean visions and the cycles of nature; unicorns and horses acting as mythic companions, their horns igniting flames as they carry human figures across fields of grass; portraits of family and lovers, tender yet uncanny, grounding archetypal themes in lived intimacy. Among them, sunflowers rise and bow, marking the inevitable passage of time. Every image does not merely depict but evokes—each painting becomes a threshold between birth and fading, between memory and vision.

Taken together, these paintings move between the symbolic and the sensual, between cosmic scale and earthly detail, alluding as much to Tarot archetypes as to the artist's private memory. They suggest that the world itself is whorled: layered, spiraling, and endlessly in motion. Chowdhury's practice draws from mystical traditions, poetry, and art history while remaining rooted in the texture of daily life.

Srijon Chowdhury
Aeon with Flowers (detail), 2025
oil on linen
72 x 60 ins.
182.8 × 152.4 cm

The Whorled continues Chowdhury's long-term project Sigil Cycle, a multi-year installation exploring a visual cosmology inspired by the Tarot's Major and Minor Arcana through concentric steel circles embedded with paintings - and spells. Here, the paintings function both as autonomous works and as fragments of a larger cosmology, inviting the viewer to enter into a cycle of revelation, intimacy, and return.

Srijon Chowdhury (b. 1987) was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and lives and works in Portland, OR, where he and Anna Margaret run the exhibition space Chicken Coop Contemporary. He holds a BFA from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and an MFA from the Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA. He has been awarded grants from the Oregon Arts Commission, 2018; Regional Arts and Culture Council, 2018; Precipice Fund (Andy Warhol Foundation, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, & Calligram Foundation) 2017; and the Otis Governors Grant, 2012. Chowdhury has presented solo exhibitions at Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA; CFA Live, Milan, Italy; Antoine Levi, Paris, France; and Ciaccia Levi, Paris, France; among others. His work has been included in group shows at the FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, CA; Franz Kaka, Toronto, Canada; Chapter NY, New York, NY; Nir Altman, Munich, Germany; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; and Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; among others. Chowdhury’s work was recently showcased in the 2024 Artists’ Biennial in Portland, OR. Concurrent with his co-curation of the Frye Art Museum’s group exhibition Door to the Atmosphere, the institution held Chowdhury’s first solo museum exhibition Same Old Song in 2022, coinciding with a publication of the same name. Tapestry, Chowdhury’s debut solo exhibition with P·P·O·W, was on view in Fall 2024.