Khushi Khandelwal is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of the body, memory, and emotional architecture. Through painting, drawing, and even textile work, her practice explores themes of anxiety, identity, and the politics of visibility, particularly as they relate to the gendered body in South Asia.
Her ongoing series autopsy dissects not only anatomical form. but also the psychological being. The works reimagine internal organs as roots, branches, and other forms that chart survival, rupture, and tenderness equally. Using her own image as a reference, Khushi claims authorship over pain and process, offering vulnerability as both-resistance, and reclamation.
(Autopsy) Eyes
Autopsy is not about pain. The autopsy is a look into the mind- what is the feeling of a mind that refuses to rest? The feeling isn’t contained to the head. You feel it everywhere. Autopsy is about regaining control. It tears open the body for the viewer, showing the effects and feeling of anxiety, unease and what it is like to be unable to cleanse yourself of a parasitic pain.
(Autopsy) Before
(Autopsy) Severed
(Autopsy) Radius
(Autopsy) Ribs
(Autopsy) Heart
(Autopsy) roots
(Autopsy) Chest
(Autopsy) Spine
(Autopsy) Guts
This is a reclamation of autonomy over the body. Organs turn to roots, branches and other forms. It shows that pain is not the endpoint. It is the beginning of transformation. It is persistence, survival and care. The body is not unaware that is it cut open and looked at. It shows the viewer that it is changed, and grown.
(Autopsy) stitches
(autopsy) metamorphosis
Paranoia
Paranoia is a self portrait. Is there something moving behind my eye? You need to holdup a mirror to examine changes that happen under the skin too.
Crunch
Clean on the surface. Damage is usually visible only at the core. It is parasitic, and irreversible-bite into the apple full of worms, and swallow it.
Orange is about how change slowly appears to the surface- it starts from an infection inside, and by the time the skin starts to change, the insides are already rotten.
Orange A
Orange B
Orange C
Target
Eyes are the window to the soul- or so the saying is. Dissection of the soul should rightfully start from the eyes-open the window and witness.
sleep
Picture is a changing face forcing you to smile, and to look. It is a literal representation of that performance.
Eat
Look
Pipes is about revealing by making imprints or dents onto the paper itself, the marks are only visible when color is filled in. It talks about wounds that are invisible-brought to the surface.
Pipes 1
Pipes 2
Seeds
The infected pomegranate is a depiction of an invasion that can only be seen after dissection. its attracting worms into its core, and making it unfit for consumption.
Blackhole
An imaginative interpretation of performative healing- slapping some flowers onto a blackhole.
i smell like rot and nobody has noticed
This work depicts weeds invasive, and hard to ever really get rid of. The repetitive text is like a subconscious chant, something living under the surface.
Clockwork
This a body in unrest it shows the inability to relax, and the distress that comes with it.
Insect
The Buzz
