Ruhee Maknojia
Bio: Ruhee Maknojia is a NewYork based interdisciplinary artist working in painting, printmaking, and installation. She was born in Texas in 1993 to immigrant parents from India and Pakistan. Maknojia gradu ated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Visual Arts and Middle Eastern Studies. Her experience of growing up in America in a home that is culturally IndoIranian is the lenses through which she sees the world. Her work is heavily influenced by the aes thetics and philosophies of the Persian garden and what it means to open the gates between an internal space of serenity and an external world of chaos.
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: My work and research deals with the concept of the internal and the external, the esoteric and the exoteric space. In Persian philosophy, the garden is often described as a symbol for paradise on earth, in contrast, the external space (outside the garden) is the wretched and chaos of the world. The garden’s purpose is to provide a place for protected relaxation. My work is trying to create an internal space of serenity, yet it is being constantly shaped and reshaped by the infiltration of the exoteric life. In my process of making, I often imagine my loved ones buried below my feet, while above, my hands are trying to create an incubated space of tranquility.
L to R: Animal verses man before the king of jinn (Garden series); (96" × 48" wood panels, with attached 10" × 8" wood panels, Oil paint, mixed media Three, 2018); Rising Sun in the Garden (96" × 72" × 48", Oil paint, mixed media on canvas and wood panel, 2018); The Grand Debate (5 minutes, Video animation, 2018); Detail, Dancing in the Sun (96" × 150", with attached 10" × 8" wood panels, Oil on canvas, 2018)