Amilla Sadhra – Between the Lines
‘I’ve learned to embrace that uncertainty because it mirrors recovery itself. You don’t always have control over the process, but unexpected changes can lead somewhere stronger than you first imagined.‘
– A few of your work is based on people and places you have come across, but there are also quite a few abstract pieces as well. How do you balance creating a mix of abstract and real life pieces in your work?
For me, abstraction isn’t a departure from my figurative work, it’s a necessity. My representational paintings demand a lot of focus, patience and control, and I find that process incredibly grounding. This being said, I’m also someone who experiences emotions quite intensely, and abstraction gives me a space to work through those feelings without needing to explain them. It’s less about depicting something I can see and more about expressing something I can feel. I think the two approaches need each other. One gives me structure, the other gives me release, and together they create a practice that feels emotionally honest.
– What is the origin of your creative journey? What was your first encounter with art and how has it evolved?
I’ve been making art for as long as I can remember. As a child I was always drawing, painting and making things, and over time it became the way I made sense of the world. What started as a creative outlet gradually became a more intentional practice. My work has evolved from focusing on technical realism and controlled compositions to exploring more emotional, experimental approaches through abstraction and mixed media. That shift mirrors my own personal growth, where art has become both a form of observation and a way of processing difficult experiences.
– You are also a tattoo artist. How have you merged the two styles and reconciled the fact that you can’t cover up mistakes in tattoos?
I was actually a tattoo apprentice rather than a practising tattoo artist, but the apprenticeship had a lasting impact on my work and I had the opportunity to do around 40 tattoos on skin. I was fortunate to learn traditional coil machine techniques, and those skills have stayed with me. I now use a tattoo coil machine directly onto raw canvas, treating it as a drawing tool rather than using it on skin. It introduces a physical, almost performative mark-making process that I find really exciting.
– Is there a story behind your current style? Did you use other media before oil and acrylic?
My style developed gradually through experimentation rather than a single turning point. Before settling on oil and acrylic, I explored graphite, charcoal, pen, digital drawing and tattooing. Each medium taught me something different about mark-making and composition. I still enjoy experimenting with unconventional materials, including bleach, drawing ink and tattoo machine but oil remains central to my practice because of its depth, flexibility and ability to build atmosphere. More recently I’ve been combining structured figurative work with looser abstraction, allowing emotion to guide parts of the painting while still grounding it in observation.
– What does a piece look like when it starts as observation and then it gives way to something more emotional or experimental?
Most of my work begins with something I’ve genuinely witnessed or experienced—a place, a person, or a quiet moment that feels important enough to hold onto. I usually start quite observational because I want to preserve that memory, but as I work, the emotional side gradually takes over. That’s often when I begin experimenting with different materials or processes. The piece becomes less about documenting what happened and more about expressing how it felt. I like that shift because it reflects how memory works. We don’t remember things perfectly, we remember them emotionally.
– Since you’ve been experimenting with different materials, have any of these drastically changed the piece before? Was it for better or worse?
Definitely. Some of the biggest changes have come from using bleach on photographs or incorporating tattooing techniques into paintings. Those materials are unpredictable, and sometimes they completely transform what I originally intended. There have been moments where I’ve thought I’d ruined a piece, but those accidents often become the most interesting part of it. I’ve learned to embrace that uncertainty because it mirrors recovery itself. You don’t always have control over the process, but unexpected changes can lead somewhere stronger than you first imagined.
– How do you see your work advancing as time passes?
I hope my work continues to become more ambitious, both technically and emotionally. I’m interested in pushing the relationship between painting, photography, tattooing and other unconventional materials even further while staying rooted in honest storytelling. Recovery will probably always influence my practice, but I want to keep exploring broader ideas around memory, identity and transformation. More than anything, I want to keep making work that invites people to slow down, reflect, and hopefully find something of themselves in it.
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