Sahana Ramakrishnan’s paintings explore the concept of non-duality, central to Hinduism and Buddhism. The Western-European tradition––with its emphasis on the distinction between the subject and the object, between the rational mind and the examined world––has led, inevitably, to the fracturing of the social fabric and the wealth gap that accompanies unchecked individualism. From this standpoint, Ramakrishnan uses her paintings to contemplate death, identity, and the consumption and killing of "other" sentient beings.
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Ramakrishnan was born in Mumbai, India and raised in Singapore. She traveled to the United States to complete her BFA in Painting at RISD, has participated in residencies and fellowships at Yaddo, Gateway Project Spaces, the Robert Blackburn Workshop, the Yale/Norfolk Summer program, and received the Florence Leif grant from RISD.