SPIRITUAL ABSTRACTION: SAHAYA SHARMA
“Freedom means to choose your own truth and nurture it in peace, clarity and depth.”
Every layer in Sahaya Sharma’s work is a chosen reality. Working with upcycled textiles, mixed media, and immersive soundscapes, she builds visual manifestos designed to evoke reverence and inner stillness. Informed by an early spiritual awakening and her practice of Pranic Healing, her art is simultaneously deeply personal and universal.
We talked with Sharma to discuss the evolution of her abstraction, the profound impact of her son on her worldview, and the intricate creative process behind her art.
Sahaya Sharma in her New Delhi studio with her new post partam body of work – Planet Mamahood 2026; Courtesy of Sahaya Sharma.
I want to start off by asking you about your future project Planet Mamahood. Can you share a bit about it? And how did becoming a mother impact you as a human and an artist?
Planet Mamahood is my 8th body of work. It’s an ongoing series of mixed media textile paintings that started 8 months after I gave birth and painting in my postpartam period made me realise the real power of art to heal, slow down and realign. I would feed my baby and then run to the studio to get a few hours in. A breastfeeding body feels like a milky ocean of stars and flowers – honestly that’s how I felt and that’s what was coming out in the art. The paintings are these hypnotic scapes with floating textile islands, swirls, winds and storms. A land that both a mystic and a child can hopefully enter and relate to!
Becoming a mother has made me more grounded and kinder as a human being (yes, I have my moments). It’s also taught me the important of Here and Now, planning and connecting and owning a narrative in ones life.
Becoming an artist mother has made me want to define my art practice and carve a niche for myself. I’ve also realised that I am really quite eclectic and alternative.
Art started for you since you were a kid. Do you remember any of your early works? It's maybe too soon to ask such question, but did your little one already managed to show his artistic side? :)
Yes, art started for me very earlier. It doesn’t even feel like something from this lifetime. I can’t explain it but it’s just how effortlessly and psychosomatically I understand colour and texture. My mother kept ALL my drawings and doodles as a child. I recently remember looking as this Mickey Mouse drawing in colour pencil that I made from 2002. It made me smile. I was obsessed with drawings cartoon characters from the tv. Power puff girls takes the cake!! On holidays, I remember charcoal drawing with a coal that formed from the overnight borne fire with my uncle Robin in Sitla, Hydrangeas in watercolour from my mother, Sabina and watching my father, Sharad carve native looking creatures out of wood with the swiss knife. My psyche is a river of mixed media stones in every single sense.
My little one has a spark in his eyes. He is so naughty and curious, it’s both delightful and delirious. His father has introduced him to Lego duplos that he loves disassembling and assembling. Play at 17 months feels very free flowing but because art means so much to me, I want him to just explore it. He scribbles with oil pastels and pens, while being supervised (else everything goes in the mouth). He also enjoys music a lot!!! He’s a cool kid to hang out with. He has his likes and dislikes and is quite sure about what he wants (much to learn from that!).
“I don’t create from trends, mass production or superficial inspiration – I create from lived experience.”
Your main message is for people "To be free". But what does "freedom" mean to you?
At its heart, freedom is spiritual enlightenment, empowerment and service. That’s why I explore a genre like Abstract Art. It’s the closest to Spirituality. When you’re an artist, it’s very easy to get caught up in “Am I doing enough? Am I making enough?” Honestly what I have realised is – what’s enough and who decides?
Freedom means to choose your own truth and nurture it in peace, clarity and depth.
Freedom means to show up for yourself in a way that becomes inspirational to others who could be struggling to believe in something bigger than themselves.
Soon you'll be heading to Goa for your musical residency. Can you tell us a bit about that trip? What do you expect from it?
Alongside art, I make music too – Song write and produce (the outline on Logic Pro). So I decided to sign up at Fieldworks (we are their first batch!) to learn music production and filmmaking – the idea is to create a song and video as a gift for my son. I want him to look back and have an audio visual archive of my memory of him. I started writing this song – Kiyaan Meri Shaan (which means Kiyaan, my pride) for him when he was 1 month old and the paragraphs kept coming together as he started speaking new words.
I expect to own my musical side and embrace the world of editing, metaphors from nature and colouring a lot more unabashedly through this residency at Fieldworks, Goa. In 2027, I will also be working more seriously on my second studio album – Planet Mamahood (yes! It’s an LP too) with Bombay based producer Adam Malvi. Planet Mamahood seems to be becoming a Manifesto.
Sahaya Sharma in her studio with her painting - Pluto and Jupiter from Planet Mamahood 2026; Courtesy of Sahaya Sharma.
Talking about your musician side, how would you describe your style to people?
An Immersive sonic landscape – more minimal than my paintings but as soulful as the subtext of their essence.
A world where electronic production, sacred ritual and maternal memory converge into intimate cinematic worlds.
Incense on the beachside under the moonlight with the Seer looking out into the vast ocean with the prismatic tears of divine remembrance in them.
You are no stranger to Pranic Healing, can you explain to our readers what it is and how you came to it yourself?
The interest in Pranic Healing came into my life at a time when I was searching for deeper balance – not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. I got my spiritual awakening at 20!! I’m like, “God, why did you want me to awaken from the Maya Jaal (Matrix) so early!??” – But everything happens in divine order. At its core, Pranic Healing is an energy healing modality based
on the idea that the body has the innate ability to heal itself when its energy system is cleansed and balanced.
What drew me to it wasn’t a desire to find quick answers, but a curiosity about the invisible dimensions of our well-being. As an artist, I have always been fascinated by what cannot be seen but can be deeply felt – emotion, intuition, memory, presence. Pranic Healing gave me a language and a practice that resonated with that way of experiencing the world.
Over the years, it has become less about healing as an event and more about healing as a way of living. It has taught me the importance of inner stillness, energetic hygiene, compassion and responsibility for my own emotional landscape.
Whether I am creating a painting, writing music or simply navigating motherhood, the principles of Pranic Healing have quietly informed the way I move through life. They remind me that our inner state inevitably shapes what we create and how we relate to others.
Sahaya Sharma in her studio with her painting - Pluto from Planet Mamahood 2026; Courtesy of Sahaya Sharma.
In 2013 professor Maznah Sherrif asked you: "Have you explored abstract art?" and that was the moment that gave us the Sahaya that we know today. Why do you think you found your place in abstract?
As I’ve mentioned before, my connection to colour has always felt sacred. Even before I had the language for it, colour was how I processed emotion, memory and the unseen. In many ways, Professor Maznah Sheriff recognised that before I did. She was the first person to ask me to remove the form and explore the feeling.
It’s been thirteen years since that conversation, and I’ve never looked back. I’ve stayed committed to abstraction because, for me, it is the closest visual language to spirituality.
It allows me to paint what cannot be spoken.
At heart, I’m a healer and a feeler. I don’t create from trends, mass production or superficial inspiration – I create from lived experience. Every painting begins with something I’ve genuinely moved through. I think that’s why people often pause in front of the work. They may not know the story, but they recognise the honesty. The work is truthful to the bone and to my personal mythology.
IMPRINT OF NEW MEMORY, 2019-2026), mixed media and up cycled textiles on canvas 5x5 ft; Courtesy of Sahaya Sharma.
Can you tell us about the work that is presented at this exhibition "Imprint of new memory"? Can you share the creative process behind it?
The final piece is Imprint of New Memory started in 2019 as an exploration of an ancient bond between two beings so complete that their identities begin to merge. The painting moved through many-many layers of emotional healing and rewiring generational patterns. The block print enters as a symbolic stamp of rewiring and repatterning. A CHOSEN layer. CHOSEN reality. CHOSEN dimension. A CHOSEN future.
Throughout the composition, shafts of light emerge as moments of revelation. They reference the stories of luminous ascended beings associated with Lake Mansarovar near Mount Kailash, becoming symbols of inner awakening rather than literal presence.
Except for "Being free," what is the message that you would like to convey to people that look at your work?
SPIRITUAL POWER.
Through colour, tone, texture and harmony.
“With great power comes great responsibility.” – Uncle Ben, Spider-Man. Power of any kind is actually studded with being the change you want to see, deep clarity of purpose and building a community that trues know what they are doing or where they are headed.
With the visual manifestos I am building, I genuinely hope that people leave with a renewed sense of reverence – for themselves, for one another and for the natural world. If my work can encourage even one person to live more consciously, to create with courage, to love more deeply, or to remember that they are part of something far greater than themselves, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
For Sharma, the true medium is not just upcycled textile or sound, but energy itself. By anchoring her practice in the invisible dimensions of well-being, she proves that taking control of one's energetic field is a prerequisite for liberation. Her reference to Uncle Ben serves as a sharp reminder: the freedom to choose your reality demands the discipline to maintain your inner state.
Article by Vasya Kavka
Based in Ukraine, Vasya Kavka is a writer working at the intersection of contemporary art and digital culture. Through his platform @ambient.delusion, he researches emerging and underground artists, publishing interviews and editorial features that move beyond aesthetics to examine context, creative process and cultural relevance. His work is driven by curiosity and a commitment to thoughtful, accessible storytelling that situates artistic practices within the broader currents shaping contemporary culture.
