San Francisco-based artist Anoushka Mirchandani presents a solo exhibition, 'My Body Was a River Once,' at ICA San José. The show features vibrant oil paintings that depict apsaras, ancient Southeast Asian mythological nature spirits associated with water and transformation, drawing from the artist's Indian heritage and childhood memories of sites like the Ajanta and Ellora caves.
The exhibition, curated by Zoë Latner, explores themes of timelessness, femininity, and biophilia, examining the dynamic between power and vulnerability. Mirchandani's work grounds itself in cultural tradition and a sense of place, using a terracotta red underpainting inspired by the soil of Goa and Maharashtra to connect the figures to their environment and the artist's personal history.