Easter Eggs, Cats, & Honest Women: The Playfully Wild Wonder Of Saakshi Sankhe's Art

Saakshi speaks about her art the way some people speak about a good book: with reverence, intimacy, and the understanding that it has saved her.
Her women; her animals; her tiny doodles of her dog, Laika, are not just subjects. They are signposts pointing to something larger: the connection we share with ourselves and with each other.Saakshi Sankhe
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4 min read

Saakshi Sankhe sits surrounded by an ever-growing universe of her own making. Her art — playful yet deliberate, whimsical yet layered — feels like stepping into the mind of someone who observes more than she speaks. Saakshi’s world is one of bright colours and tiny, almost secret details. It's a world where cats lounge lazily, women gaze thoughtfully, and dogs sneak into the background like mischievous spirits. “I’m obsessed with detail,” she says. “It’s like filling my work with Easter eggs.” And in a way, her art is a series of eggs hidden in a garden — each piece brimming with small, deliberate touches that hint at something larger.

Saakshi speaks about her art the way some people speak about a good book: with reverence, intimacy, and the understanding that it has saved her. As a child, she was shy. Words were elusive. But art gave her a language. It began with crayons and paper collages, hours spent alone inventing worlds that would keep her company. “I could talk through my work,” she explains. “It was a bridge between me and other people.”

Even now, that bridge holds. The women in her illustrations — bold, steady-eyed, yet familiar — are reflections of herself, but also of the people who see them. They are mothers, friends, strangers glimpsed on a train. “People tell me they see themselves in my work,” she says. “Like a reflection in a reflection.”

Saakshi’s process is a patient one. She collects ideas — simple and unremarkable at first, but heavy with potential. “My ideas come to me randomly,” she says. “I write them down so I don’t forget.” Then comes the observing. Days spent looking — at leaves, at movies, at her own reflection in the mirror as she strikes a pose for reference photos. Her phone gallery is full of herself making strange expressions.

But it is the time she spends not drawing that feels most crucial to her. This is when the world seeps in. “There’s so much to appreciate out there,” she says, though she admits it's overwhelming. She describes her mind as a chaotic place. Her art, then, becomes an exercise in order — an attempt to wrangle that chaos and shape it into something meaningful.

For years now, the Mumbai Local has loomed large in Saakshi’s life. It's a beast that every Mumbaikar knows well — alive, restless, endlessly demanding. For Saakshi, it's a symbol of her own history. “I’ve been a regular traveller for years,” she says. “It’s so intimidating and overwhelming.” Yet, despite its omnipresence, she hasn't yet captured it in her work. “It’s such a personal subject,” she explains, “and my thoughts about it are all over the place.” For Saakshi, the Mumbai Local is memory and movement, exhaustion and persistence. To capture it would mean to confront its complexity — its beauty and brutality alike.

There is no sermon in Saakshi's work. Her illustrations are not weighed down by grand statements or a need to preach some higher truth. They don't attempt to shock or moralize, and therein lies their brilliance. There is something profoundly human about this — an insistence that life, even at its most ordinary, is worthy of notice.

Her women; her animals; her tiny doodles of her dog, Laika, are not just subjects. They are signposts pointing to something larger: the connection we share with ourselves and with each other. Her art is the work of someone who listens, who sees, who captures life not as it should be, but as it is. There is, perhaps, no higher praise for an artist.

You can follow Saakshi here.

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