The artist
Sandhya Jathar
Indian artist shaped equally by Kerala's classical traditions and Mumbai's urban density. Working across figurative, abstract and mixed-register painting.
Studio, Mumbai
Artist statement
I don't follow a style. I follow a thought.
Each painting begins as a story running in my head — sometimes a memory, sometimes an observation from thirty years of watching people inside organisations across three continents, sometimes something rooted in Kerala where I grew up, sometimes just Mumbai on a particular afternoon. I let that thought decide the form. Some days it becomes abstraction. Some days Kathakali. Some days a path through autumn trees or birds in conversation. I don't choose the register — the story does.
What stays constant is intent: I want the person standing in front of the work to find their own story inside mine. The painting is a starting point for a conversation, not a conclusion.
Mask-Age — my most personal series — emerged from COVID as it unfolded in real time: the masks, the stages, the emotions, the silence, the aftermath. It taught me that constraint is also a subject.
I work in oil and acrylic, often on large canvas, because scale creates physical presence. I want the work to be impossible to walk past quickly.
Intent
I am not emerging from art school. I am emerging from life. That is a different kind of formation.
My intent is to bring work that sits outside fixed cultural or stylistic categories. I am an Indian artist shaped equally by Kerala's classical traditions and Mumbai's urban density, working across figurative, abstract and mixed-register painting.
How it started
Physics, then people, then paint
I rediscovered art in 2008, while working as a human resources professional at Bank of America. My husband pushed me to start, and I began with landscape.
I majored in Physics, then took an MBA in Human Resources, then collected a long run of post-graduate certifications in psychology — organisational psychology, MBTI, Hogan, Predictive Index, FIRO-B, DISC. That training is not separate from the painting. It is why the work keeps returning to what people carry and cannot say.
Larry Poons said a failed painting is better than one that's just plain bad, because the failed one could have been great. I've taken that seriously, which is why the styles overlap and contradict each other — landscape, abstract, figurative, still life.
The medium stays oil. The canvases stay big, because life has to be big and wholesome, and a painting should be a visual celebration of colour.
Series & practice
What the work is made of
- 2020 onward
Mask-Age
The most personal series. Painted as COVID unfolded in real time — the masks, the stages, the emotions, the silence, the aftermath. It taught me that constraint is also a subject.
- Ongoing
Nature
Work about what we've forgotten we belong to. Blossoms, foliage, brick, birds — nature as a mirror of the inner world rather than a backdrop to it.
- Ongoing
Kathakali & classical form
Rooted in Kerala, where I grew up. When the story in my head arrives wearing a face, this is the register it comes in.
- Ongoing
Abstraction
Not a separate practice — the same thought, on the days it refuses to take a figure.
Shown at
Exhibitions
- Orizzonti TrasversaliM.A.D.S. Art Gallery, Milan
- India Art FairNehru Centre, Mumbai
- Art GroovesBombay Art Society
- Art for Concern2018
- Art GroovesOnline exhibitions, 2020–2022
Studio
Come and see it in person
Photographs flatten paint, and much of this work is heavily textured — the surface is part of the argument. If you're in Mumbai and considering a piece, come to the studio.
Visits by appointment. If you're elsewhere, I'll send video in natural daylight, which is more honest than any still image.
Request a visit- Based inMumbai, India
- FromKerala
- MediaOil and acrylic, often large canvas
- RegistersFigurative · Abstract · Kathakali · Nature
- EditionsNone — originals only
- FounderPaint for a Cause
- Instagram@sandhyajathar