Soumiya Krishnaswamy

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Artist statement

My work is process and materials based, decoding our humanity and ability to communicate over time, space, culture, through mark-making. I am obsessed with mortality and struggle with obsessive/compulsive issues, surfacing in the paintings. Control versus chaos. Meditation and repetition, disruption and rhythm, A child of immigrants, outsider to 2 worlds, I search for what connects us. That dive into human existence drives my work. Marks come from researching cave art, indigenous imagery, kids’ drawings, and colours from my Indian heritage plus Western associations. I explore these via gesture, colour, media, layering paint, carving into it. Through smearing, scraping, removing, adding, revealing, grouping, separating, the process is the subject. I want my viewer to have a visceral reaction through the body, and voyage into a mindscape, a place beyond words and time, yet full of memories, stories, and fantasy.

Artwork

• Erishkegal 2025, 2025. Oil on canvas
• In the Garden of My Ancestor Ts'ui Pen, 2024. oil on canvas
• Perimenopausal Phoenix, 2024. oil on canvas
• Euphoria and Existential Daydreams, 2023. Oil on Canvas
• Orphic Eggs, 2023. Oil on Canvas
• The Deep Chasm Between Love and Hate, 2022. Oil on Canvas
• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Thank You Ocean Vuong), 2022. Oil on Canvas
• Love in the Time of Coronavirus, 2020. Oil on Canvas
• Tangerine Dreams and Marmalade Skies, 2022. Oil on Canvas
• Even Your Emotions Have an Echo In So Much Space, 2020. Oil on Canvas
• Like A Heartbeat Drives You Mad In the Stillness of Remembering What You Had, 2023. Oil on Canvas
• Lost In Translation, 2023. Oil on Canvas