Folk Symbols & Personal Mythologies: Paintings by Aunia Kahn

American artist Aunia Kahn creates richly layered paintings filled with women, animals, flowers, celestial forms and recurring symbols that explore memory, identity and transformation. Working with gouache, acrylic, colored pencil and dimensional elements, she crafts intricate compositions inspired by folk traditions, the natural world and her own personal history.

After spending two decades working digitally due to severe reactions to traditional art materials, Aunia was eventually able to return to physical media following a diagnosis and treatment. Beginning again with watercolor and gouache opened up a new chapter in her practice, while also reconnecting her with the Polish and French Canadian roots she had distanced herself from for many years.

Those influences now weave through her work in the form of decorative borders, patterned clothing, birds, flowers, hearts, snakes, moons and other symbolic motifs. Aunia describes her approach as Contemporary Symbolist Folk, using this visual language to examine the thresholds between sanctuary and loss, life and death, cultural memory and personal transformation.

For more of Aunia Kahn’s work, visit her website and follow her latest projects on Instagram.

More art on the grid Aunia Kahn’s website