Western Washington University

09/22/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/22/2026 13:02

Western Gallery announces new exhibition of paintings by South Asian American artist Rajkamal Kahlon

Western Gallery announces new exhibition of paintings by South Asian American artist Rajkamal Kahlon

University Communications

September 22, 2026

Image: What is Cuba's history but that of Latin America? What is the history of Latin America but the history of Asia, Africa, and Oceania?... 2024, Mixed media on canvas, 48 x 30 7/8 ins. Courtesy of Rajkamal Kahlon and P·P·O·W, New York, © Rajkamal Kahl

Western Gallery is pleased to present "Are My Hands Clean?" featuring recent paintings by South Asian American artist Rajkamal Kahlon on view Oct. 8, 2026 - Jan. 23, 2027. There will be an opening reception for the artist on Thursday, October 8, 5 - 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

For over 25 years, Kahlon has challenged Western knowledge production, transforming images and texts found in historical archives through intervention and painting. After discovering a particular author, book, scientific or anthropological text, the artist physically intervenes in the materials.

Books are methodically disassembled and the pages become the backdrop for the artist's own paintings. Images of anonymous figures within the texts are altered and reconceived, confronting the context in which they were originally made. Kahlon's intermediations address how trauma and the body are at the center of political violence. She is "talking back" to the original authors, reimagining and retelling the impact of colonialist histories.

The exhibition presents fourteen mixed media works, nearly all life-sized representations of women. Inspired by Third World communist movements, Kahlon paints her subjects as warriors of the people. The series directly addresses the history of Third World communist movements that were systematically repressed through efforts of the United States government. Armed with grenades, machine guns, and machetes, the artist literally provides her figures with the means to "fight back." Each woman also bears an insignia identified with a particular political group, inserting the buried histories of anti-imperialism from Brazil to Indonesia into the present moment.

Are My Hands Clean? also features Die Völker de Erde (People of the Earth), a project that began during Kahlon's artist residency at the Weltmuseum Wien in Vienna, Austria, in 2017. During this time, she discovered a copy of the 1902 German anthropology publication Die Völker der Erde by Kurt Lampert in a nearby bookstore. Using the book's pages as her canvas, she created a series of over 300 drawings that challenge the colonial gaze.

The exhibition also includes a mural-sized wall painting of two bare-chested women seated side by side flanking one of Kahlon's book-page paintings. Their larger-than-life presence raises questions about scale and representation. Kahlon's mural, like much of her work, intentionally disrupts the historical record and insists on a reconsideration of who is seen, heard, and remembered.

Building on the themes in her work, Kahlon has curated a series of playlists for the exhibition highlighting songs of resistance and revolution from across the world. Individual listening stations will represent distinct geographical regions and offer songs such as "Are My Hands Clean?" by Sweet Honey in the Rock, "Give Us Our Land" by Harry Belafonte, and Woody Guthries' "Tear the Fascists Down," to name a few.

Please visit the Western Gallery website westerngallery.wwu.edu for information about our public programs in conjunction with the exhibition. Western Gallery is located in the Fine Arts building on Western Washington University's campus. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., Saturday noon - 4 p.m.

Rajkamal Kahlon (b. 1974, Auburn, CA) is an American artist living and working in Berlin, Germany. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of California, Davis, CA, and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA. She is an alumna of Skowhegan and the Whitney ISP and is a professor of painting at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany.

Kahlon has held solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Gallery Wedding, Berlin, Germany; P·P·O·W, New York, NY; Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany; and Kunstverein Konstanz, Germany; University Library Gallery, Sacramento State, CA; among others. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Stadtmuseum Dresden, Germany; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland; Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; Artists Space, New York, NY; Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, Mexico; Museum of Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia; among others. She has been awarded the Hans and Lea Grundig Prize, Villa Romana Prize, Joan Mitchell Painting and Sculpture Award, Pollock Krasner Award, and has completed residencies and fellowships at American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Security Project, New York, NY; Center for Book Arts, New York, NY; and Newhouse Center for Humanities, and Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA.

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