The End of Night, 2022
Oil, acrylic, color pencil, graphite, beetle wings, rhinestones and gold leaf on wood panel. 55 x 90 in. (Three panels)

Image courtesy of the artist and Fridman Gallery.

Offering, 2023
Oil, graphite, rhinestones, gold leaf on canvas. 14 x 12 x 1 1/2 in.

Image courtesy of the Artist and Fridman Gallery.

The End of Night, 2022
Oil, acrylic, color pencil, graphite, beetle wings, rhinestones and gold leaf on wood panel. 55 x 90 in. (Three panels)

Image courtesy of the artist and Fridman Gallery.

memory/

When I was a child, I got to snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef. It was so beautiful there; the water was so clear it looked like turquoise jelly. The ocean can often be terrifying because of its strength and depth, but this shallow reef was like a playground. I swam with turtles and two cuttlefish followed and stared at me, just floating in the water and changing colors. The beauty of that experience gave me huge respect for wild and natural places. Beauty is a valuable quality in the world that needs to be protected and celebrated. It falls to the wayside when we only prioritize speed, growth, and profit.

In college, I trekked in an area called Dharamshala in the Himalayas, which is known for being the Dalai Lama’s place of exile. It’s a very Buddhist area, and I saw a Tibetan thangka there for the first time. Thangka are paintings on cotton from Tibet centered around Tibetan Buddhist deities and practices. These practices were born from Buddhism from India, which met and evolved with local culture around the 7th century. I saw one hanging in a store that depicted Mahakala, a wrathful deity. It was grotesque and fearsome, but also celebratory and genuinely stunning. It brought beauty to a place I had never seen before, representing difficult realities about human nature in an expression that felt radically peaceful.

These two memories have driven my work and also represent my internal struggle. The horror of what is happening to nature is incomprehensible and difficult to make sense of. In Buddhism, you must find a balance between fighting for what you care about and embracing a radical acceptance of the world––there are only so many things you have control over. I feel terribly sad about what is happening to our oceans and reefs and at the same time an urgent desire to hold on to my memories of these places. Struggling with these kinds of feelings (I am certain so many of us are) guides what I choose to depict in my work and how I go about it.

Jackal Brings a New Era, 2023
Oil, beetle wings, graphite, seed beads, and gold leaf on wood panel
47 1/2 x 30 x 11/2 in.

Image courtesy of the Artist and Fridman Gallery.

line/

My primary source of inspiration is the lyricism of South Asian miniature painting and its storytelling. Those painting traditions span Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic art from South Asia, Tantric art, and Court paintings. There are tropes of color and composition that I draw from, as South Asian painting contains a complex and diverse color sensibility.

In my painting process, sometimes I begin by working off of still life, or I will make drawings or even etchings. With etching and printmaking, I am forced to slow down. These processes feel more precious than sketching. Depending on what I feel intuitively called to do, I will make etchings or drawings, but the drawings are focused more on composition. I can never just follow a drawing for a painting. There needs to be some level of freedom, otherwise it feels like I'm copying myself, so I may play with scale or the parameters of composition in the painting.

The Closing, 2023
Oil, graphite, sumi ink, seed beads, gold leaf and rhinestones on wood panel. 80 x 30 in.

Image courtesy of the Artist and Fridman Gallery.

color/

Sometimes, I’ll see an image of a coral reef, forest, or miniature painting and I love the color relationships. I start painting with a focus on that color palette, but typically, the painting will shift completely. The color and image go hand in hand, and I see color as in service of what image emerges in my process.

There are a couple of blue paintings I made for my exhibition An Ocean in Time, because I was interested in underwater atmospheres and depth. I’ve been interested in pink lately because I think pink translates to the idea of an internal universe. I think there is a weird parallel between the internal of our bodies and outer space. I can’t describe the connection yet, but I think I can use the color pink to explore that relationship visually.

I like the idea of art as a diagram or map to understand cosmic, spiritual, and earthly relationships. Mythology is another way to access that mode of thinking. For example, there is one myth about an island in New Zealand that emerged when a trickster figure went fishing and pulled it out of the water. I almost feel that the myth describes real geological formation since that land mass surfaced during the changing of sea levels related to climate change on our planet. Myth is a way of reaching into deep time and pulling out elements of truth. Yes, in the story, this island is pulled out by a trickster, but tricksters are representative of energies in the world. Myths sometimes give me goosebumps, because it feels like someone is whispering to us through generations. That someone feels like time, ecology, human generations, and who knows what else, speaking together as one evolved being. Or a collective dreaming.

Myths are a beautiful way to understand our connection to the environment and organisms around us. The mythological motifs I use, such as the man sleeping on the cosmic ocean, buffalo, or spirals, allow me to visualize abstract concepts, such as time, primality, or chaotic energy. I’m learning how to map out my observations and relationships–with other beings, the oceans, and energies–through my own hybridized mythologies.

Song of the Naga, 2023
Oil on canvas. 76 x 120 in.

Image courtesy of the Artist and Fridman Gallery.

Written and interviewed by Gabrielle Luu.

Gabrielle Luu is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY and the Editor-in-Chief of Civil Art.

Image courtesy of the artist.

Sahana Ramakrishnan

Sahana Ramakrishnan (b. 1993) is an artist based in Brooklyn and Jersey City. She received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2015.

Sahana Ramakrishnan was born in Mumbai, India and raised in Singapore. Sahana’s work has been exhibited internationally and nationally in Fridman Gallery, Jeffrey Deitch Projects, Arsenal contemporary Gallery, The Rubin Museum, Wadstrom Tonnheim Gallery, the NARS Foundation, and more. Sahana has been an artist in residence at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY, a recipient of the SIP fellowship at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking workshop, the Feminist-in-Residence program at Gateway Project Spaces, the Yale/Norfolk Summer program, and the Florence Lief grant from RISD. Her work is currently in the collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami, The Brooklyn Museum in New York, and the Kadist Foundation in Paris. Ramakrishnan’s paintings and exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications such as The Brooklyn Rail, Artforum, Hyperallergic, Artnet News and more.