Artist Ravelle Pillay was born in Durban, South Africa in 1993. She currently lives and works in London.
Pillay tells us about her work, The lastborn: "In my work I am drawn to image archives and physical photographic materials which I think through in paint. As my paternal grandparents were teachers I have access to an unusual archive of, among personal family photography, images from their careers over the years. I am drawn to the aspirational drive evident in these photos as well as the formal attributes of the image. The irregular angles of the bench and the folds of pinstriped suits, as well as the individual expressions and postures of each sitter almost combative toward the immaculately arranged image and its intended purposes.”
Pillay was born and brought up in South Africa. Her great-great grandmother, Athilatchmy Velu Naicken, was born in India and travelled to the then British colony of Natal, South Africa, through the system of Indian indentured labour, and her great-great grandfather, John Edward Powys, was born in the South Indian city of Madras (present-day Chennai).
The artist considers the legacies of colonialism and migration, and how they haunt and reverberate in the present. She draws on found and family photographs, vintage documents, and oral history, as well as the material degradation of photographic images over time, to consider how we construct our identities and how we remember.
The artist received a degree in Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2015 and was the first prize recipient of the 2022 African Art Galleries Association's Emerging Painting Invitational. Following a residency at Gasworks London, Pillay’s first institutional show, Idyll, opened at Chisenhale Gallery, London, in 2023. She participated in (Un)Natural : Constructed Environments at the Nasher Museum of Art (2023-2024), and Soulscapes at the Dulwich Picture Gallery (2024). In 2025, she was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in London to create a body of work as part of the Artists First: Contemporary Perspectives on Portraiture programme, which opened in September 2025.
