Sunaina Bhalla is a contemporary artist of Indian origin, living in Singapore. Educated in India, she moved to Tokyo in the late 90’s and has spent the last two decades in various parts of North and South Asia. Having completed her formal education as a textile designer specializing in print, she chose to pursue an immersive education in the traditional art form of Nihonga in Japan, where she spent 5 years studying under Suiko Ohta-sensei of the Kyoshin-Do school. She completed her Masters of Fine Arts degree from Goldsmiths University, London and Lasalle College of the Arts, where her thesis topic was ‘The Gesture and the Ritual of Pain’

Her work revolves around the repetitive and ritualistic nature of gesture and mark-making. She employs the body as both subject and material, examining how physical actions and repetitive processes become repositories of memory, resilience, and transformation. Through materials and methods that reference cycles of repair and erosion, she investigates the ways in which personal and collective experiences are inscribed onto the body. Themes of trauma, healing, endurance, and recovery recur throughout her practice, often through labour-intensive processes that foreground vulnerability and strength.

Sunaina has exhibited in Japan, India, Singapore, Europe and the Middle East. Her works are in the permanent collections of the ESSL/ESR Museum, Vienna and Mumbai Airports Authority, India, and in various private collections globally. She has also had her works successfully auctioned at the Mainichi Auction in Japan.

She conducts wood block printing workshops regularly in Singapore, Myanmar, Indonesia, America and Australia.