Sahana Ramakrishnan

What has always drawn me to creating is that images can articulate experiences that are complicated, dissonant, and abject in ways that open up the heart and mind. This is the guiding force behind my work. I address issues related to the separation of “I” and “other” – the violent and shifting processes by which we form our cultural, gender, sexual, and human identities. In drawing and mixed media I imagine how these philosophical themes can be unpacked and manifested in narratives belonging to an alternative world that mirrors but is foreign to our own.

I take inspiration from how myths conjure “magic” in order to prioritize spiritual or emotional experience over historical fact or rational thought. I seek out narratives, symbols, and archetypes from Asian, African and European myth and contemporary ritual, but when they appear in my work they are chopped and skewed. Mythical references are a framework for me to address questions about human-animal relationships, and the versatility of the female figure.

My pieces sit somewhere between collage, scroll drawing and tapestry, and I develop them with the intention that they exist in flux between different cultures, geographies and histories. This is a direct reflection of my own background and a shared experience of many in my generation. Mutation, fusion and hybridity are important to me, both in the formal aspects of how the surface and object of the drawings function, and in the narratives they depict. Read Less

Sahana Ramakrishnan is a Brooklyn based artist who was born in India and educated in Singapore and the United States. She obtained her BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, Sahana is also the recipient of the Yale/Norfolk Fellowship Award and the Florence Lief Grant from RISD. Her work has been exhibited in auctions and galleries in the U.S. such as Groundswell mural, 12 Gates Arts, Rabbithole Gallery, A.I.R. Gallery, Front Art Space, among others. Read Less