Rajkamal Kahlon: And Still I Rise

About the Artist

Rajkamal Kahlon’s research-based practice resides at the intersection of visuality, violence, and colonial histories. Submitting historical and contemporary archives to a transformative process of deconstruction and intervention, the artist proposes painting as a strategy of rehabilitation and radical care. Kahlon appropriates a range of archival materials in her work—anthropology and travel books, historical treatises, medical records and military reports which premise a colonizer perspective. The artist confronts the problematic nature of her sources overlaying contemporary imagery and poignant portraiture atop the disassembled book pages. Through her visual address, she questions the narratives contained within these materials and reveals the racist subtexts and objectifications of the ethnic body found within. By using her own hand in redrawing and repainting the native subjects, Kahlon alters the colonizer story line and generates redemptive potential histories. For the artist, it is a way to “talk back to these archival documents and point us towards spaces of potentiality and freedom.”

Originally from Northern California (b. 1974, Auburn, California), Rajkamal Kahlon is currently based in Berlin, Germany. And Still I Rise is the artist’s first major survey in the United States. Kahlon received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of California, Davis, and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from the California College of Arts. She is an alumna of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. As of October 1, 2021, Kahlon will be the new professor of painting at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the 2012 Taipei Biennial, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, and the Museo Universitario de’Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City. Recent solo exhibitions include Weltmuseum Wien, Austria (2017-19) and MEWO Kunsthalle, Germany (2019). Kahlon is the recipient of numerous grants, awards, and residencies including the 2019 Villa Romana Prize, Joan Mitchell Painting and Sculpture Award, Pollock Krasner Award, and 2021 Hans and Lea Grundig Prize.

And Still I Rise is organized in partnership with Yuba Sutter Arts & Culture. The exhibition is presented in two locations: the University Library Gallery at Sacramento State and the Sutter Theater Center for the Arts in Yuba City, California. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. www.calhum.org

Read more about the artist's work

University Library Gallery September 7 - December 16, 2021