Artist-IN-RESIDENCE
May 1-21, 2026
Janhavi Khemka
Born in 1993 in Varanasi, India, Janhavi Khemka is an interdisciplinary artist who graduated with a B.F.A. in Painting from the Faculty of Visual Art, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi in 2015, and an M.F.A. in Graphics from Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan in 2017 and a Studio Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA in 2023.
With her impaired hearing, Khemka looks at disability not as a disadvantage, but as a lens through which one can see, understand, and negotiate with the world in a different way. Each work is an expression of her unique ways of interacting with the world without acoustic sensation. Khemka’s art practice is characterized by her thoughtful choice of medium to translate her perception. Most of her work is rooted in personal memories, her physic and physical life.
She calls her works small dots in the vast map of mind and memory, constituted by the particular use of the medium. The shifting from one medium to another, from printmaking to stop-motion to vibrational installation, is, therefore, understood as the expanse of the sensory map. However, although autobiographical elements are strongly present, her work speaks of her dreams of overcoming the shortcoming, creating a space for spontaneous dialogue between the artist and the audience. Presently working from Chicago, USA, Khemka has been creating live performances that question the meaning of language and how we understand it.
Artist Statement
Born in Varanasi, India, Chicago-based artist Janhavi Khemka approaches acoustics through woodcut printmaking and experimental installations composed of animation, sound, performance, and vibratory material.
Growing up, Khemka’s late mother encouraged her to speak in Hindi, resulting in an emphasis on lip reading in a hearing-speaking world. Shortly after she lost her mother to cancer, Khemka searched for ways to imprint her experience of the ‘real’ world. Activating her sensory capacities through touch, taste, smell, and the visual, Khemka attended Santiniketan (2015-2017), interjecting a lineage of largely male master printmakers with conceptual wit and an astute awareness of the limits of printmaking. Khemka moved to Chicago to complete her second master’s at the School of the Art Institute, finding herself gravitating toward animation, sound design, and performance, activating works on paper through sound and bodily intervention. Developing immersive works that splice together the two and three-dimensional, she invites her viewers to locate their inner assumptions and aural subjectivities within the strange and otherness.
Slipping between imposed identities like ‘disabled,’ ‘marginalized,’ ‘immigrant,’ Khemka transcends ineffectual terms, attuning herself instead to the possibility of listening to materials she works within. For her, it becomes a fictional necessity to ensure her politics are not foreclosed nor erased, theoretically and conceptually.
Janhavi’s recent exhibitions at Comfort Station and SITE Student Galleries, Chicago, IL, have received critical attention. She has also recently been awarded fellowships at KALA Art Institute Residency, Berkeley (CA), and the 3Arts/Body of Work Residency, between UIC and the MCA Chicago. She has worked closely with Japanese printmaker Paul Furneaux in Edinburgh, UK, and has recently earned the UC Berkeley South Asia Artist Prize 2024 and Lalit Kala Akademie Award for her installation ‘Sapna,’ in 2022.