In Karma’s Grasp (Solo exhibition, 2026)

In Karma’s Grasp is a series of oil paintings drawn from my ongoing study of the holy Sanskrit text, the Bhagavad Gita (the Gita)1. This body of work was born out of an attempt to comprehend even a fragment of the Gita’s complexity, centred around concepts of karma (action and consequence), samsara (the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth as dictated by karma), and sattva (goodness and harmony). Each painting acts as an energetic landscape, with a particular focus on karma. An element that ties the series together is an antithetical tension between light and dark - symbolizing action and inaction; control and surrender; and knowledge and ignorance. These binaries are not mutually exclusive, but coexisting energies that inform one another – mirroring my own creative process.

Through layered oil paint and shifting atmospheres, I aim to evoke what it feels like to be “in karma’s grasp” - caught in the perpetual loop between action and consequence, and control and surrender. In today’s global web of exploitation – embedded in structures of consumption and unseen labour – our actions are inevitably bound to harm. As someone implicated in these systems through everyday participation, this friction becomes something I continue to question through painting. Throughout this series, I invite viewers reflect on the karmic remnants of our actions and consider the weight of the choices we make every day. 

1. Vyasa. The Bhagavad Gita, trans. Eknath Easwaran (Nilgiri Press, 2007).