Roy Tamboli is an artist based in Memphis, Tennessee, best known for large-scale abstract and figurative works in bronze and steel, as well as paintings and experimental, conceptual pieces across diverse media. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Mitsukoshi Museum of Art in Japan, and Galerie Enrico Bucci in Chile. His pieces are held in public and private collections, including those of Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art; the Mississippi Museum of Art; the Hyde Foundation; Nortel Corporation; B.B. King; John Lee Hooker; and Harrah’s Entertainment. In 1992, he co-founded Delta Axis, a nonprofit connecting the visual arts communities of Memphis and New York.

The grandson of Italian immigrants who settled in the Mississippi Delta, Tamboli was shaped by Catholic ritual and Memphis gospel in a city where spiritual richness and social turmoil exist side by side. He often begins his sheet paintings abroad and finishes them in his Memphis studio, merging disparate energies into single works. Since his 1989 series Ancient Satellite Fragments, his work has questioned human consciousness and contact with otherworldly neighbors. Largely self-taught, he traces his real education to foundries, studios, museums, and remote cultures across six continents—beginning at 23, when he talked his way into the stacks at Windsor Castle to draw from boxes of uncovered Leonardo da Vinci drawings.

In today’s episode I mention this NYT The Daily episode and reference this podcast from Radiolab.