JANHAVI KHEMKA
1993
JANHAVI KHEMKA
(b. 1993, Varanasi, India)
Janhavi Khemka’s interdisciplinary practice engages sound, vibration, and perception through the expanded language of printmaking. Working primarily with woodcut, her works function as investigations into the relationship between the visual and the acoustic, examining how movement, rhythm, and resonance can be translated across material forms. Printmaking in her practice exceeds its conventional boundaries, becoming a framework through which sound, gesture, memory, and spatial experience are registered and reimagined.
Woodcut remains central to Khemka’s approach, providing both a material and conceptual foundation for her work. Through the carved line, she explores the energetic and expressive capacities of mark-making, drawing inspiration from the movement, texture, and emotional intensity found within historical and contemporary visual traditions. Her practice extends into installation, animation, performance, and sound, incorporating vibratory materials and immersive environments that foreground the sensory dimensions of experience. Through these expanded forms, she examines how sound can be visualised, embodied, and encountered as a spatial phenomenon.
Khemka completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Faculty of Visual Arts, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, in 2015, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in Graphics from Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, in 2017. She later received an MFA in Studio Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023. Her work has been exhibited across the United States, India, Norway, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, including recent presentations at the Hyde Park Art Center Biennial, Comfort Station, and SITE Galleries, Chicago. She has been awarded residencies and fellowships including the KALA Art Institute Residency, Berkeley; the 3Arts/Body of Work Residency in collaboration with the University of Illinois Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and has worked closely with printmaker Paul Furneaux in Edinburgh. Her accolades include the UC Berkeley South Asia Artist Prize (2024) and the Lalit Kala Akademi Award (2022) for her installation Sapna.
Khemka lives and works in Chicago, United States.
