About the Artist

Gaya’s Story

Gaya Chandrasekaran is an award-winning, London-based contemporary artist whose practice bridges the vivid cultural memory of her upbringing in Chennai, India, with the contemplative stillness of her life in the UK. Trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, her work has received international recognition through major honours including the VAA Art100 International Art Prize, the Collectors Art Prize | Art Legends of Our Time, and the Persona Art Honours.

At the centre of her work is a deeply personal exploration of connection. For much of her life, she experienced a sense of not quite belonging, a quiet distance that became the starting point for her practice. Painting evolved into a way of turning towards these emotions, understanding them, and translating them into form. Over time, this led to a simple but powerful realisation: the feelings we experience most privately are often the ones that connect us most deeply.

Working in textured acrylic, Chandrasekaran builds sculptural surfaces using palette knives, heavy-body pigments, and gold leaf. Her process is intuitive and layered, shaped by gesture, rhythm, and material. Often inspired by movement and time spent in nature, her work reflects an ongoing dialogue between the external landscape and an inner terrain.

Across her series Soliloquy, Rebirth, and Nirvana, she explores themes of inner dialogue, transformation, and spiritual growth. Colour, influenced by her Indian heritage and life in London, brings warmth and quiet optimism to each piece.

Reviewed by Lee Sharrock and Tabish Khan, her work sits between abstraction and landscape, evoking depth, movement, and emotion. Featured in juried and curated publications, her works are held in private collections across US, Europe and India. 

Her paintings are not intended to describe a place, but to create one.

Spaces that hold emotion.
Spaces that soften what we carry.
Spaces that remind us that we are not alone.

Artist Statement

I start my canvas with an idea of what I’d like to see, not entirely sure of the end result. I prime the surface, create broad outlines of shapes, and arrange the color palette for ready use. I then let the process take over and evolve. When I use images as reference, I tend to use their abstracted versions as a starting point. I work extensively with acrylics. Creating textured art is an intensely tangible experience that brings the artwork alive for me. I use palette knives for layering and mixing heavy body acrylics with gel mediums. I also use gold leaf quite regularly as I am drawn to the color of gold, a powerful symbol of abundance. I continue working until I feel excitement and can embrace the artwork unconditionally. The whole process consistently feels cathartic, infusing me with a deep sense of joy and fulfillment.

My artworks are based on the themes of Quest, Soliloquy, Rebirth and Nirvana. These themes reflect key life moments and are an expression of my thoughts, emotions, sensations, and experiences. As I reflect on and synthesize my experiences, floodgates open for new creative ideas. I record these ideas and refer to them for inspiration. I am strongly influenced by the exuberant colors and patterns of my childhood home in India.

I have come to realize that much of individual experience is shared. I intend to give voice to such universal experiences and themes. These include our search for meaning, the constant inner dialogue, endings and beginnings, and the spiritual lessons - some more poignant and difficult - that we learn throughout our lives.

Artist Review

“Gaya Chandrasekaran's art reimagines pointillism through a distinctly contemporary and culturally hybrid lens. Drawing from her Indian heritage and her training at the Slade School of Fine Art, Gaya's art draws inspiration from the meticulous dot work of Seurat, and she creates bold, tactile constellations of colour and texture. Often using palette knives rather than brushes, she layers heavy-bodied acrylics on canvas panels, sealing them with high gloss varnish to create shimmering, almost sculptural surfaces. The addition of gold leaf lends her compositions a spiritual luminosity, invoking both divine light and the sacred geometry of natural forms.

In works such as Elysian Fields and Sunflower Fields from her Rebirth series, Gaya merges the chromatic exuberance of Post-impressionism with the meditative rhythms of her process. Her fields of colour pulse with life, echoing the cyclical themes of transformation, nature, and renewal. Meanwhile, in Salty Mornings, from her Soliloquy series, she translates the British coastal landscape through a sensibility rooted in the vivid hues of Chennai, fusing East and West in a dialogue of memory and sensation.

Her practice celebrates light, nature, and the circadian rhythms that shape human experience. Gaya's art is both joyful and transcendent: an exploration of hope, belonging, and the shimmering continuum between the seen and the felt.” by Lee Sharrock (Renowed Art Critic)

“The sun striking our faces as it crests the horizon or lighting up a, mountainside and giving it a golden glow. There’s a beauty and joy that comes from observing these events that’s hard-wired into all of us, whether that be people living today or the very first humans that observed it. It makes us feel closer to nature but also humbled when gazing at the beauty of the world around us.

By recreating such scenes in thick colours or by using gold leaf, a material associated with wealth, the works of Gaya Chandrasekaran feel like a love letter to the natural world around us. Incorporating couplets from the Tirukkural, a sacred and centuries old text, alongside the mountains in her works it reminds us that these mountains and landscapes are sentinels that have watched over the entirety of human history and will still be here long after we’re gone - they deserve both our awe and respect. “ by Tabish Khan (Renowned London Art Critic)

“Gaya Chandrasekaran's exquisite collection of artworks orchestrates a harmonious blend of texture, color, and emotive prowess, captivating the senses and beckoning the viewer into a realm of profound contemplation. The artist's oeuvre is distinguished by a daring exploration of impasto technique, wherein the application of paint is executed with such audacity that the viewer is immediately captivated by the discernible knife or brush strokes. This deliberate choice bestows upon each artwork a remarkable three-dimensional quality, allowing it to command a tangible presence within the realm of visual perception. The artist's masterful manipulation of texture beckons the viewer to engage with the artwork on a multisensory level, transcending the boundaries of mere visual perception.” by Marta Puig (Editor, Contemporary Art Curator Magazine)

https://www.contemporaryartcuratormagazine.com/home-2/gayathrisai-gaya-chandrasekaran

Artist Interviews

• Culuralee (February 2026)

• Flux Review 13 (December 2025)

• Contemporary Art Collector (October 2025)

• ArtistCloseUp (August 2025)

• Contemporary Art Curator (August 2025)

Past Exhibitions (20218-2022)

2018: Curated First Solo Physical Exhibition @ Santander UK Plc, sold 70% of artworks raising funds for AgeUK

2019: Won Special Commendation from David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation for painting titled ‘The Golden Lion’ (oil on canvas)

2021: Conceptualized the idea of an Art Exhibition within the London Business School community culminating in the first-ever Art Week in 2021; selected paintings were part of the online exhibition and she was a speaker of the Artists Panel.

2022:
Physical Exhibition @ ‘Cosmologies’ of The Holy Art Gallery (Jul-22) near Dalston, London.
Solo Virtual Exhibition with The Holy Art Gallery from Sep/Oct-22.
Physical Exhibition @ Boomer Gallery’s New Artists Third Edition Exhibition (Aug-22) near Tower Bridge, London.
Publication in the Artist Talk Magazine Issue 22 (Nov-22)

Awards

Winner, International Prize Renoir 2026 by The Effetto Arte Foundation (Italy)

Winner, Persona Art Honors 2025 (December) by Contemporary Art Station

Winner, VAA Art100 International Art Prize December 2025 by Virtual Artist Association (VAA)

Shortlisted Artist, VAA Art500 International Art Prize September 2025 by Visual Artists Association (VAA)

Selected Artist, 101 Art Book: Landscape Edition August 2025 via international juried open call by Art to Hearts Project

Collectors Art Prize | Art Legends of Our Time, August 2025 by Contemporary Art Curators

‘The Golden Lion’ July 2019: David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation’s #Sketchforsimba Competition

Past Exhibitions

2026:

• Solo Exhibition, CHAOS London (Cafe), 1-11 June 2026

2025:

• Exhibition of artworks @ Adlib Gallery, Feb 2025

• Flux Exhibition 2025, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, July 2025

• Artworks on Display at The Coffee Room, Mile End, May 2025 onwards

2024:

• Art Below Winter Show with Adlib Gallery, Wimbledon Village Feb 2025

• Resident Artist, The Boomer Gallery, May 2025 - May 2026

• Online Gallery Representation:

  • Singularart: https://www.singulart.com/en/artist/gaya-chandrasekaran-62057

  • Saatchi Art: https://www.saatchiart.com/en-gb/cgayasart

2023:

• Publication in the Artist Talk Magazine Issue 23 (Jan-23)
  Digital Exhibition at Times Square, NYC, USA via Artist Talk Magazine (Jun-23)
  Digital Exhibition at Times Square, NYC via Plogix Gallery (Aug-23)

• Digital Exhibition at Swiss Art Expo, Zurich (6-10 Sep 2023) via Artboxy

• Digital Exhibitions at Nicoleta Gallery, Berlin, Germany / Andakulova Gallery, Dubai, UAE / Casa del Arte, Palma, Spain / Thompson Gallery, Zug, Switzerland / Andie Art Gallery, Athens, Greece (Oct-Dec 2023) via Artboxy 

• Digital Exhibition at Spectrum Art Fair, Miami Art Basel Week, Miami, Florida, USA, (6-8 Dec 2023) via Artbox Projects

2018-2022: Scroll further down, to the left!

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