Puja Chodha is a visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She holds a Master of Arts from Steinhardt, New York University. Her work explores perception, transformation, and the subconscious through an intuitive process of image-making.
“I approach my work as a form of meditation. I am drawn to the poetic and expressive works of Albert Pinkham Ryder, Paul Klee, and Hilma af Klint, as well as the materiality of Alberto Burri and the visceral color fields of Mark Rothko.
My practice moves between photo-encaustic work and encaustic painting. In my photo-encaustic process, I distort, blur, layer, sample, and reconstruct photographic images, allowing color, texture, light, and form to guide the work. Through this process of deconstruction and reconstruction, digitally and then physically—disparate elements come together and unexpected forms emerge.
My encaustic paintings explore color, depth, and luminosity through the physical qualities of wax and pigment. Working with layers of translucent color, I am interested in how light, material, and subtle shifts in hue can create an experience that is perceptual and emotional rather than narrative.
Across both bodies of work, I am interested in that moment of transformation, when what is becomes something it was not. Through the exploration of materials and an openness to the unknown, images and forms surface intuitively. The finished work becomes a record of that experience and an invitation for the viewer to encounter it in their own way.”
