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The first thirty seconds into our interview, a dog appears in Sahil’s frame. We’re off to a great start. Sahil sits on the floor. The chair is occupied with a mountain of clothes. “I’m always living out of a suitcase, even when I’m back home,” he justifies. He fidgets, not in a nervous way, but more like someone whose mind is constantly turning. You get the sense that Sahil exists in multiple worlds at once, dipping between them, creating connections between what is seen and unseen.
Sahil’s art is the kind that pulls you in slowly, almost imperceptibly, until you realize you’ve lost yourself within it. It’s not just a feast for the eyes — his work is a sensory experience, something you feel more than observe. His pieces are intricate, bursting with life and color, yet they possess a kind of ethereal weightlessness. There’s a sense of being guided through a dreamscape where everything is in flux: surreal shapes, vivid colors, and delicate, almost invisible threads that tie together emotions, memories, and the subconscious. It’s not immediately clear what each piece is about, and maybe it doesn’t need to be. You can see parts of Sahil in them. His art is a method of exploration, an ongoing search for a feeling, a connection, or perhaps a moment in time that he’s trying to relive.
“I think my work is very semi-conscious,” Sahil says. “It’s very inspired by nature and energies that are beyond. I’m chasing that super-consciousness through my work.” For Sahil, art is not about what is immediately visible; it’s about the spaces between. His pieces are complex, maximalist compositions that explode with color and texture, where the surreal bleeds into the organic, and reality is only a vague suggestion. As someone who describes his art as “instinctive”, he often works without a clear plan. His process is fluid, driven by intuition. “It’s like a stream of consciousness,” he explains, “where I just let my hand guide my mind.” This approach feels like an effort to step out of his own way, to allow something deeper — perhaps even spiritual — to emerge.
To understand Sahil, you have to understand the deep relationship he has with nature. Growing up in Goa, he spent countless hours by the beach or wandering through the woods, feeling a connection to the world around him that he describes as almost divine. “I used to take my own time going into the woods and by the beach to just sit,” he tells me, his voice softening as he remembers. “I’d just sit with myself and connect with things around me, just to remind myself of my origins.” For him, nature wasn’t just a backdrop — it was a mirror, a reminder of his place in the world. “A lot of people tell me they can’t really see nature in my work, but it inspires everything,” he says.
There’s a tension that runs through his life and his work — a push and pull between structure and freedom. This tension was perhaps never more apparent than during his time in design school, a compromise between his artistic aspirations and his parents’ more practical concerns. “I always felt a little iffy about the idea of studying art,” Sahil admits. Design, he says, was a kind of middle ground. But design school introduced its own set of challenges. “Design is very process-oriented,” he explains, “and I’m someone who works on this organic intuition. It was very hard for me to document and fragment that process.”
Yet, this struggle to reconcile the structured world of design with his more instinctive artistic impulses shaped him in ways he didn’t expect. The multidisciplinary nature of his education gave him the tools to experiment with film, photography, and animation: disciplines that have become central to his practice. Animation, in particular, has become a favorite medium. “I always do straight ahead animation,” he says, describing how he works without a storyboard, letting the frames evolve organically. “At the end, I try to piece together these fragmented narratives to create something more coherent.” It’s a process that feels both chaotic and deliberate, much like Sahil himself.
Sahil’s personality, like his art, is layered. There’s a natural warmth to him, an openness that makes you feel like you’re sharing something intimate, even if he’s hesitant to dive too deeply into self-reflection. He laughs easily, but there’s also an introspective quality that suggests he’s constantly turning inward, processing, analyzing. His thoughts seem to flow freely — often trailing off mid-sentence only to circle back to the point with surprising clarity. It’s clear that words, for him, are less precise tools than the brushstrokes he so effortlessly wields in his art. “I’m sorry,” he says more than once during our conversation. “I’m really bad at articulating things.” Yet, despite his protests, there’s something deeply articulate about the way Sahil moves through the world. It’s as if his very being is an act of translation — converting the energies and feelings he absorbs from his surroundings into something tangible.
For Sahil, painting holds a different kind of significance. It’s not just about creating — it’s about connecting to something larger than himself. “When I paint, it’s more a part of my spiritual life rather than just a creative exercise,” he explains. There’s a sacredness to it, a trance-like state that overtakes him as he works “I find myself losing track of time, making all these instinctive decisions,” he says. His medium of choice, surprisingly, is not canvas but cardboard. He gets up excitedly to show me an example. “It’s very perishable,” he shares, “I didn’t really intend to sell this stuff.” He’s only just started signing his works.
This juxtaposition between the sacred and the mundane — between the chaotic and the controlled — defines much of Sahil’s work. His art feels both deeply personal and entirely universal, shaped by his own experiences yet accessible to anyone who stands before it. “I made a painting about my partner,” he says, “with tiny symbols about our relationship and our love that pulls us together.” But even in pieces that aren’t explicitly personal, his identity as a queer, brown man from an orthodox family seeps in. “I think subconsciously I tend to bring that part of myself into my work, whether I intend to or not.”
What’s striking about Sahil is how he seamlessly straddles the line between introspection and experimentation. While many artists might feel weighed down by their internal world, Sahil seems to revel in it. He’s constantly searching, pushing boundaries, and challenging himself to expand his creative practice. His process is an ongoing act of self-discovery, both through his own identity and his evolving relationship with the world. His influences are as eclectic as his work — from classical painters like Hieronymus Bosch to the animated short film ‘Orgesticulanismus’. “Bosch really inspired me to make these elaborate, maximalist paintings,” he says. There’s a deep admiration for the way those artists created fantastical worlds that still felt grounded in some deeper truth.
In recent years, Sahil’s practice has evolved to include larger, more ambitious projects. He’s currently working on an intricate 3D project called Corporeal Instruments, a series of organic sculptures on themes of anatomy, sentience, and the relationship between the body and the mind. “I’m creating these sculptures through a very semi-conscious process,” he explains, “meditating on things like proprioception and somatization.” He’s currently deep in a rabbit hole reading about Eastern philosophies, Buddhist and Hindu texts which he sees “influencing [his] work going forward”. Despite his clear ambition, there’s a gentle modesty to Sahil that’s disarming. He speaks of his goals not in terms of success or fame, but in terms of artistic fulfillment. “I’m trying to be a full-time artist,” he says, almost offhandedly, but there’s weight to the statement.
As our conversation winds down, I ask Sahil if there’s anything else he wants to share. He pauses, eyes drifting momentarily. “I think we’re good,” he says finally, with that soft, unhurried smile. But then, as if on second thought, he adds, “I’m a really awkward, introverted person.” There’s a lightness to his words, a self-awareness that’s charming. It’s this very mix — his introspective nature, his quiet confidence, his unselfconscious vulnerability — that makes Sahil as much an enigma as his art.
And perhaps that’s the point. You don’t leave a conversation with Sahil feeling like you fully know him, just as you don’t walk away from his art feeling like you’ve uncovered every layer. Instead, there’s an invitation — to look again, to see more, to feel more. And in that space between what’s seen and what’s felt, between what’s said and what’s held back, you begin to understand who Sahil truly is.
You can follow Sahil here.
