Ashritha Chandy:

“When you open your art up to the public, you see everybody else’s interpretations and how your art inspires them to connect their own memories to this cool object that they see,” Chandy said. 

Brainstorming theme ideas, Chandy originally thought of nostalgia, but later narrowed it down to familial memory, as the majority of her pieces surround childhood memories.

“Typically the people that are prominent in your memories are your family,” Chandy said. “I feel like that plays such a big part in our lives, and I thought it would be a good thing to base my artworks off of.” 

“Outreach,” a sculpture of hands, began as mere experimentation and use of a common motif, but transitioned into a moving symbol of Chandy’s family trying to stay connected amidst her sister, Smrithi Chandy, moving to A&M for college.

“The whole piece represents how families start to move apart because someone is moving away, moving on with their own lives, but you’re still connected,” Chandy said. “You’re still reaching towards each other.”

“Hall of Memories,” the reason why Chandy went with a theme of familial memory, is composed of polaroid pictures of family and memory hanging from the ceiling, allowing visitors to literally walk through her memories. 

“I think that one [“Hall of Memories”] is probably one of my favorite’s because I had never done an installation piece before,” Chandy said. “It was kind of cool just to set up and piece together, see how little pictures can turn into something that’s more interactive for the audience.”

“Moment in Time,” an acrylic painting of Chandy’s older sister, stems from a family vacation several years ago to northern India. At the Red Fort in Agra near the Taj Mahal, a place that’s representative of Indian art and culture. 

“There’s a lot of culture behind that so I feel like that was a good way to tie in Indian identity while also tying in family memories and being born in America but still connecting to that,” Chandy said.

Combining the use of a wide range of mediums from plastic gauze, acrylic paint, graphite, film and wire, with subtopics like loss, highlighted in her acrylic painting of her grandfather “Achachan,” further diversified her collection. 

“Because it [last school year] was virtual, that meant we had to do everything at home and making art at home was not fun,” Chandy said. I was just not inspired at all. So honestly, I’m happy with how everything turned out and the exhibition itself, I think it went great.”