Goodman Gallery is pleased to present Ravelle Pillay’s American debut with Sanctum (The Light and the Shade), the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery’s New York location.

The exhibition features a new series of paintings that respond to Pillay’s 2024 trip to Réunion Island, offering a layered exploration of the island’s complex colonial history and its enduring influence on the landscape and its people. Through her work, Pillay examines themes of cultural hybridity, resilience and the ways landscapes bear witness to history.

Located in the Indian Ocean between Mauritius and Madagascar, Réunion Island is presently an overseas department of France with a cultural heritage shaped by African, Indian, Chinese and French influences. Pillay’s paintings respond to the complexities of pre- and colonial history; its postcolonial present and creole culture. Her work confronts the lingering presence of plantation society—its brutality and its enduring impact on contemporary life, agriculture and the island’s historical and present-day economy and politics.

The island’s striking topography—dense, verdant plains, volcanic plateaus and misty mountain villages - becomes both a literal and symbolic backdrop in her exploration of identity and resistance. Pillay reflects on the historical significance of sanctuaries accessible only by helicopter or foot, along treacherous cliffside paths first forged by the Maroons, enslaved people who escaped captivity. These landscapes of refuge, marked by painted shrines and Madonnas, attest to distinct threads linking African people, enslaved by the French creole elite; enslaved and indentured Indian and Chinese labourers and the long reach of British colonial power.