Ariya Mukherjee-Gandhi is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Her work explores memory, identity, ritual, and intergenerational relationships through painting, mixed media, and digital storytelling. Drawing from her South Asian heritage, she is interested in how everyday gestures can function as forms of cultural preservation and emotional connection. She is a teen curator and an NYC youth civic leader who creates work that bridges personal narratives with broader cultural conversations. Her artwork has received regional and national recognition through the Scholastic Awards and has been exhibited at The Met, MoMA, the High Line Gallery, and Pelham Art Center.

Ritual of The Roots explores hair oiling as both an ordinary routine and a sacred act of intergenerational care. Passed among mothers, daughters, and grandmothers through touch and repetition, the ritual joins the personal with the ancestral. The work considers how a temporary gesture can carry enduring memory, transforming daily care into storytelling and cultural preservation.

Size: 24" by 18"

Material: Archival Print with soft pastel highlights on Strathmore paper