ABOUT LEA
My
Story
LIVING ETHER ART
My name is Sky, working under the professional name of LEA (Living Ether Art) as a contemporary artist. I'm currently based in Goa, India, a beautiful coastal state known primarily for the rustic natural beauty of its beaches and forests.
WHAT I DO and WHY IS IT UNIQUE?
I’m a CHARCOAL and SUMI artist working with interpretations of the Eastern traditions of Zen and Taoism; these are explored through works that range from abstract to abstract-impressionist.
I am still evolving as an artist and avoid type-casting myself stylistically. I want to feel free to explore different genres of artistic styles whilst keeping the central theme or subject strongly rooted in the expression of the Divine Feminine. In the cosmic dimension she aligns with Tao or Mother of the Universe.
My art comes from a deep spiritual space and a person needs to be receptive enough to feel the energy behind it. It isn't for everyone and that is something I accept as an artist. I am true to my Being, and not interested to meet market trends in the art world. It is an extension of my subtle consciousness which is merged with Tao, so it flows and floats, and if someone floats along with it, perfect!
WHY I BECAME AN ARTIST?
I think the grief that you experience when you are in the process of losing a loved one changes a lot inside you. To watch the human body lose its life-force slowly is a difficult phenomenon to be witness to and experience. My mother had been diagnosed with 4th stage colon-cancer which she fought for 7 years until she could fight no more. We knew the inevitable wasn't far away. Somehow making high-end homes as an architect became less meaningful and the truth of life hung over my head like a sword. I did not see much worth in what I was doing and began to question many things. It was during this time that my growing meditation practice in both the Zen and Tao schools of thought led me to SATORI paintings which were very healing to make. At the time of my Zen explorations, I was still living in the maximum city Mumbai. It's a city that never sleeps, a city that pushes you to turn inwards to find stillness within. The contradiction within my personal life which was at the time all about travelling for chemotherapy treatments and after-care to the unveiling of a deep stillness whilst making the paintings, created the necessary foundation for my journey into art from architecture.​​
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Bio
INTRODUCTION
Sky Ananda (artist name) is the principal/proprietor and artist at Living Ether Art (LEA) who left her career as an architect to become a full-time artist in 2016. She is currently based in the beautiful coastal state of Goa, India.
She is an architect with 14 years of work experience in residential and institutional architecture with international work experience with Edward Cullinan Architects, London, UK. She is also a gold-medalist (B.Arch) from the TVB- School of Habitat Studies, New Delhi (now USAP GGSIPU) and has an M.Phil in the History and Philosophy of Architecture from the University of Cambridge, UK where she graduated with honours. She has been awarded a life-time membership of Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge.
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Sky has done extensive research on the fort-towns of India specifically within the Western desert state of Rajasthan and has a unique understanding of the spatial ontology of these forts that is rooted in everyday rituals and memory of the local communities. She has explored both art and architecture from an ontological perspective, which focuses on the relationship of Being in the world. Her years of research in the field of phenomenology and her own spiritual practice in Zen-Buddhism and Taoism lends a deep meaning to her artworks that are very much rooted in the exploration of consciousness and its connectedness to our immediate environment.
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Sky is a self-taught artist who has drawn on the techniques and tools learnt during her years both as a student of architecture and a professional architect. She is adept at working with different scales of artworks because of her architectural background and aspires to build on her abilities with each passing day. Sky works and lives mostly in silence and prefers to remain away from the chaos of everyday life and its desires. Her studio is her refuge, set away from the city in a quiet serene village where she can work undisturbed and tap into the Tao consciousness she has worked on harnessing for most of her adult life.
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TEACHING EXPERIENCE
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Sky has taught in several schools of architecture including the Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge (UK) during her postgraduate studies. She has also taught at the prestigious TVB School of Habitat Studies and the Sushant School of Art and Architecture, Delhi/NCR India as Design faculty as well as Thesis and Dissertation guide to fourth and fifth year students at these institutes.
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ART RESIDENCY & WORKSHOPS
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In 2013 Sky attended a 3-week stone-carving residency in Carrara, Italy under the instruction of Stephen Shaheen, a sculptor based in Brooklyn, New York. During the residency, she learnt both traditional and modern day techniques of carving marble, learnt about the work of Michelangelo through art museum visits in Florence where she studied his sculptures and paintings. The residency introduced her to a different scale of artistic creation than architecture and propelled her into the realm of fine arts.
In the years 2016-2018 she explored ceramics under the instruction of famous potters Vinod Dubey, Rekha Goyal and Devyani Smith all based in Mumbai. She employed techniques to develop on the Wabi-Sabi aesthetic as it aligned with her spiritual explorations at the time. She often combined her sumi-e brushwork while applying glazes on chawans furthering her craft across different materials and processes. However, her move to Goa just before the pandemic changed her circumstances and she was unable to continue with ceramics.
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EXHIBITIONS
Sky has been painting since 2016 but has only recently brought her work into the public domain. Her work was first exhibited at the ‘For The Record’ Vinyl Bar in Fontainaus, Panjim. She held an open studio in 2023, and an exhibition in 2024 titled “FUSHO- Unborn“ at her studio Living Ether Art in Goa to introduce her work and artistic philosophies to buyers, art enthusiasts and collectors.
ART AWARDS
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Jackson's Art Prize Extended Longlist 2026 (Final result awaited)
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ART SALES​
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Sky sells her art directly to patrons who have known her since her days of designing high-end homes as an architect and those she has met through her Open Studios and In-Studio exhibits and some via social media. This helps establish a long-term association of trust and respect between artist and buyer. There are no third-party commissions involved and the buyer remains in direct communication with her. Buyers and patrons receive regular updates on her new collections for pre-booking.
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