Printmakers for Disability Justice

Curated by Brett Taylor

Janhavi Khemka

About the Artist

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 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.

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.

Khemka contracted typhoid at nine months old, which resulted in the loss of her hearing. Growing up, her 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 visuals. 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.

Artist:

Janhavi Khemka

Exhibition

Printmakers for Disability Justice

A woodcut of a large red rug sits on a plywood platform. The rug is composed of mouths in various positions and scales to create an elaborate pattern.

चटाई (Chatai)
6 color woodcut print and plywood platform
72” W X 48” L X 2” H
2021

Two color overlaid with a dynamic projection featuring moving lip motifs in a rug-like pattern, with bright yellow and pink hues.

Letter to my mother
Mixed media installation
Stop motion animation from 5 color woodcut print, video projection, sound and vibration in plywood platform.
72” W x 48” L X 6”H
2023
3.32 minutes loop

A person sits upon a platform with a two color overlaid with a dynamic projection featuring moving lip motifs in a rug-like pattern, with bright yellow and pink hues. The projection covers the hands and arms of the viewer.

Video Link to see performance and installation: https://youtu.be/EFPZ_h_jo7c

The artist sleeps on the land: a landscape of Edinburgh, Anstruther, Pittenweem, York, and London. The installation features four large woodcut prints on the wall, showcasing 65-85 colors, and a smaller, framed print of a hand.

Sleeping
65 – 85 color woodcut print
4 panels of 96” X 24” (each), a small panel of 14“X 11”
2022

A wooden door ajar, with undulating water flowing out, accompanied by spikes in the door. Created from woodcut print on the paper and hanging on the wall, the piece features blue hues for the water, brown-yellow tones for the door, and grey black for the spikes.

Warning: It is time
18 color woodcut print on rives BFK paper
88” x 42”
2023

Installation accompanying a video of a face with one eye, which she manually places into her eye socket, while the other socket remains empty. Created from a black and white woodcut print.

Sapna
Mix media installation
Woodcut print, stop-motion animation using woodcut prints, plywood platform, charcoal rubbing of door and plywood panel.
Size variable
2022
3.48 minutes loop

Video Link: https://youtu.be/vshcZexkSX4

Stills from a stop motion film. A room with an open door, a bed with someone sleeping under a blanket, a rug on the floor, wooden tiles, and a half-open window reflecting the rug, all made of woodcut print in colorful.

My Room as Hell
24 color woodcut print on rives BFK paper
and stop motion Animation
33” x 22”
2021

Video Link – https://youtu.be/RY5Mi2V06p0

Black and white charcoal five doors rubbings on paper installed at various heights in an installation.

#1621
Charcoal rubbings on paper
Life-size doors (series with six units)
2022

The artist sits on a platform with a microphone in front of her waiting for a viewer to join her.

Your name, please?
Plywood platform, vibration, mics and AMP
72” W x 36” L x 3” H
2022
33:08 minutes

The artist is sitting in front of someone. He is teaching me his name using hand spelling as sign language. There is a mic stand between the two people.

Your name, please?
Plywood platform, vibration, mics and AMP
72” W x 36” L x 3” H
2022
33:08 minutes

Video Link: https://youtu.be/n28KR8F2s5g

The artist sits on her knees, holding a mic in one hand and a utensil in the other, while performing.

#1505
Performance
Utensils, plywood platform, mics and AMP
Variable
2023
23:33 minutes

An opened cupboard with a sink, has many eyes inside, with two of them crying, and their sparkling tears falling onto the sink, while a towel hangs on the wall beside it. A still from a stop-motion animation.

Mera Kamra ll
Mixed media installation
Animation from 4-color woodcut print and video projection
2024
1.40 minutes loop

Two clouds in an empty room cause a heavy, sparkling rain that's flooding the space. A still from a stop motion animation.

Mera Kamra l
Mixed media installation
Stop motion animation from 6-color woodcut print, video projection, sound, and vibration in a plywood platform
2′ W x 2′ L x 6″ H
2024
3.57 minutes loop

Viewers stand before the Mera Kamra animation of clouds flooding a room. Their bodies are covered in projections from the artist's other works.

Mera Kamra l
Mix media installation
Stop motion animation from 6-color woodcut print, video projection, sound, and vibration in a plywood platform
2′ W x 2′ L x 6″ H
2024
3.57 minutes loop

Printmakers for Disability Justice

Artist Statement

Artist:

Exhibition

Graphic Impressions Updates

Submissions