Sahana Ramakrishnan’s An Ocean of Time | September 13 – October 21, 2023
The first solo exhibition by Sahana Ramakrishnan, An Ocean of Time, presented by Fridman Gallery explores the concepts of time and interconnectedness of living beings.
Ancient myths from different parts of the world envision massive floods transitioning the world between ages dominated by different species. The ocean carries genealogical and archeological memories of all these time periods, like a collective genome of all life on Earth. Mirroring this process of accumulation, Ramakrshnan builds up her paintings slowly, in layers – embedding circular handwritten mantras in translucent acrylic, and lushly painting the figures with impasto oils, gold leaf and rhinestones. It is a process of creation by encapsulation, reinterpreting classical mythology and revealing fundamental elements and frequencies of life.
In Ramakrishnan’s worldview, traditional hierarchies are dismantled – predators coexist with prey as equals, men are in the service of women, and humans look to animals for guidance to navigate new environments. Based in part on the artist’s research into Hindu and Norse myths, the paintings depict giant otters, bears, coyotes as larger-than-life sentient beings offering us information on hunting and weather patterns.
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