Luisa Hansal undertook an artist residency in New Delhi, India, as part of Cross-Hatchings: Perth–New Delhi Residency, from 3 August – 16 September 2026.
As part of Cross-Hatchings, Luisa Hansal has spent the past month undertaking a residency at Khoj in New Delhi, exploring how ritual, repetition and embodied experiences of pain, grief and renewal can shape her practice. Working slowly and intuitively across painting, sculpture and sewing, the residency has opened up new questions around what a work can hold, and how it might create space for forms of knowledge that exist beyond language.
As she nears the end of her residency, Hansal reflects on the shifts in her practice, the value of uncertainty and slowness and her growing interest in creating work that offers space for others to connect, feel and reflect.
You’ve described your practice in some ways as absorbing feelings, ideas and experiences from daily life. How has being at Khoj in New Delhi influenced what you’re absorbing?
I feel like being in Delhi has made me much more aware of how much we absorb without necessarily realising it. There is so much here to take in. The colour, noise, heat, movement, architecture and everyday rhythms. I’ve been particularly interested in how things can register in the body before we have language for them. I might see or experience something or have an encounter during the day that doesn’t immediately make sense but somehow finds its way into my work later. Rather than trying to make work about Delhi, I’ve been thinking about what it means to let the experience of being here subtly reshape my work. I’m interested in that space between experiencing something and being able to articulate it.
You came into the residency thinking about ritual, repetition and embodied practices. Have those ideas shifted or taken on a different meaning while you’ve been there?
Definitely. I came here thinking about ritual as something I might represent, and I think I’m leaving understanding it more as something I do. The quilts have really helped me understand that. They started quite simply, working with calico, batting and thread and repeating the same sewing gestures over and over again. There’s something really grounding about that process, and I think the repetition has become a kind of ritual in itself. There’s something about repeating an action that creates a kind of structure or containment. Sewing gives me that structure, while painting allows me to let go of it. The machine creates a framework and then the painting disrupts it. I think I’ve realised that ritual doesn’t necessarily need to have a fixed meaning. It can simply be a way of paying attention.
Your work develops quite intuitively through colour, form and gesture. How has working in a new environment affected your process?
It’s made me trust my intuition a lot more. I came here with certain ideas about what I thought I might make, but being in a completely new environment has meant I’ve had to respond to what’s actually happening around me rather than relying too much on what I already know. I’m paying attention to colours, shapes, materials, symbols and gestures that keep returning without necessarily knowing why. I think that’s one of the things I love about painting. It gives me a way of accessing something before I can put it into words. I paint to understand what my body already knows and being here has made me trust that a little more. Repetition and slowness seem to be important to your process.
Can you talk more about the practice of this and what you have been exploring in this residency in relationship to it?
Slowness gives things time to surface. A lot of my practice comes from trying to understand things that I don’t necessarily have language for, so I need that time and space to sit with them. Repetition becomes a way of staying with something rather than trying to resolve it too quickly. The sewing has really intensified that for me. There’s something very meditative about making the same gesture over and over again. Then painting comes in and disrupts that rhythm. The stitched line becomes a framework, but the colour can move beyond it. I’ve been thinking about the quilt as a kind of temporary home too. Something that can contain, protect, carry and hold. Being away from home has made me think a lot about what we carry with us, whether that’s memories, rituals, objects, people or grief.
Have there been any conversations, encounters or exchanges during the residency that have made you think differently about your own practice?
I think one of the most valuable things about being at Khoj has been being around other artists and the Khoj team, and having those informal conversations about making, materials, intuition and process. There have been lots of generative moments where someone has said something about their own work and it has made me reconsider something in mine. I’ve also had encounters outside the studio that have been deeply moving and will stay with me for years to come, particularly around ritual, nature and acts of care. I’ve been really interested in forms of knowledge that exist beyond language, things that are felt rather than explained. It’s made me think more about how my own work might operate in that space too. I’m becoming less interested in communicating a particular message and more interested in creating a space where something can happen.
Now that you’re nearing the end of the residency, what’s next for you?
I feel like I’m leaving with more questions than I arrived with, which I think is a good thing. The biggest shift for me has probably been understanding that although I initially came to painting as a very personal way of processing grief and my own experiences, I’m now thinking much more about the viewer and how the work might create a space for someone else to connect, feel or reflect. I definitely want to continue exploring the relationship between quilting and painting, and this idea of the work as something that can hold or contain. But mostly I want to take some of the slowness home with me. I’ve really valued having the time to follow something without knowing exactly where it’s going. I think I’m learning to be a little more comfortable with uncertainty.
PICA’s Studio Program is supported by PICA’s Art Ambassadors. This residency is supported by Creative Australia through the International Engagement Fund and Khoj, New Delhi
