Growing up in Sri Lanka, art and folklore have always been important aspects of my life. Stories centred around South Asian women and goddesses are primary influences on my work, and in particular, those taboo stories about women with rebellious natures and unpopular opinions. The work featured here, from my series Scheherazade’s Dream, draws from powerful women found in Islamic mythology, specifically highlighting those elements of their sexuality, feminism, curiosity, and desires that are too often left out of mainstream accounts.

My interest in history and surrealism likewise informs my work, and I am interested in creating images that can be shared timelessly but which nonetheless refrain from revealing all their secrets at once. The intaglio techniques I used allow me to depict stories at a large scale and in fine detail, using a traditional form of printmaking to raise issues about contemporary culture and politics.