b. (1983)
Sareena is a visual artist based in Bangalore. Sareena works in mixed media drawing, painting, and sculpture. Her works have recently been exhibited with Exhibit 320, New Delhi, 2022 in the show ‘Virtues of Landscape,’ as a part of Delhi art week. She was a recipient of the Jaaga Art & Tech fellowship for a public art project in Bangalore in 2021. Her works were also published in arts and literary journals by Hakara Bilingual, Mumbai, on ‘Dust,’ ‘Intimate Spaces’ by G5A Foundation, Mumbai in their publication on ‘Itinerant, Transfer, Spaces’ and a feature in the Nether Quarterly, Mumbai.
Khemka holds a B.F.A in painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, India. Shows that she’s been a part of include ‘Future Foundations, ‘ Walk-in Studio, Bangalore, 2019, ‘Build & Grow,’ Sculptural Installation, Bangalore Design Week, 2018, ‘Once Upon a Time in Black & White,’ Art Centrix Space, New Delhi, 2017; ‘Introspective Revelations,’ Gallery Veda, Chennai, 2016; ‘Scape & Scope’, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2016; India art fair collateral show, Art Konsult, New Delhi, India 2015; ‘Mapping Detours,’ Chitrakoot art gallery, Kolkata, 2014; ‘Deep Skin: Skin Deep,’ Art Chennai, 2014; ‘United Art Fair,’ New Delhi, 2012 amongst others. Sareena has been a resident artist at Space 118, Mumbai several times and The Piramal Art Foundation, Mumbai. She was also invited to facilitate an art workshop with The Kiran Nader Museum of Art in 2021. The artist lives and works in Bangalore.
Sareena's work explores the living in the era of the Anthropocene where human impact dictates the nature of the landscape we inhabit, Sareena’s current practice explores the liminal memory that is triggered by natural rocks, crystals, stones, megaliths, petroglyphs, and historical excavation sites in an urban landscape that is drawn from the real and the imagined. Ruins of these historical sites and natural landscapes serve as markers of a place that helps one root oneself in a certain location.
Organic forms that flow across the surface of the drawings are derived from studies of decaying material forms that melt into each other leaving unrecognizable traces of their original existence. In some cases, layers of paper made to look like stone are chiseled, carved, and pressed like stamps with tools leaving grooves, indentations, and marks on the surface much like petroglyphs. In other instances, they are remnants of painted, layered, and gilded forms. Copper as a color reoccurs as lustrous facades of urban spaces, with the ability to tarnish and decay over time just like cities do if not preserved.