Janhavi Khemka was born in Varanasi, India, and is an interdisciplinary artist in India and Chicago. She has an MFA in print media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago 2022, a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Faculty of Visual Art, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India (2015), and an MFA in printmaking from Graphics, Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan (2017). She has shown at Comfort Station in Chicago and is an artist in residence at Bodies of Work, University of Illinois Chicago in 2023.

She states: “As a hearing-impaired person for most of my life, I have often found it difficult to express my innermost feelings, impressions, and reactions verbally. At the age of 15, my mother passed away due to cancer. She was my first teacher and my link to communicate with the outside world. She emphasized lip reading, and it barred me from learning sign language. When she passed away, I was left alone and had to learn to negotiate with the world in my own way. Art helped me find meaning in smaller, intimate things, my hands and their connection to the world, my sight, and my sense of touch. I see and can feel the storm in them but can’t hear.

My practice revolves around finding ways to translate my perception of the world. Therefore, most works are rooted in the personal, psychological, and physical. Each work can be compared to a pin dropped on a map of my being: this is where I was hurt when I cut my hand on a piece of metal; this is where I found my way home when I was lost at a carnival; here I made friends, here I found a child who accepted my shortcomings; here I spread my wings or felt the first touch of affection from another body. Most recently, this mapping has extended to installation-based environments with woodcuts, stop motion, performance art, and vibrational materials, I invite the viewer to experience my perception of the world, devoid of aural stimulation.”