Color Guide
Through her paintings and prints, R. Sawan White explores the layered nature of being human
by Abby Moore Keith
As a child, R. Sawan White was adamant she would not become an artist. Naturally drawn to creative pursuits, she entered college with plans for medical school instead. Plans, mercifully, can change, and White soon found herself in England at Loughborough University, falling in love with printmaking.
Now the New England resident’s works grace galleries across the globe, including Art & Light in Greenville, South Carolina, and Purple House in Gainesville, Georgia. A painter as well as a printmaker, White approaches her art as an exploration of relationships—our personal ones, but also those with culture and society. “The layering [in my work] is the building up of that relationship, because we’re never one thing as people,” White says.
New England-based artist R. Sawan White experiments with layering and depth of color in her paintings and prints, which explore relationships, both cultural and personal; artwork courtesy of R. Sawan White
The artist walks me through one of her prints, Vessel’s fall cover selection, titled middle of the week soft spot. It’s a graceful piece, showcasing the artist’s creative interplay with color, form, and texture. In one of the forms, there’s a fade, an actual soft spot created from the printmaking process. “I loved the fade, the experimentation. But it’s also a play on words because that was done in a time when I was hyper busy. So much was going on, and with the minutia of being a mom and all that we are, I needed a soft spot.”
Experimentation is critical to White’s process, and she jokes that she’s the world’s worst printmaker, as she’s not interested in making editions. Instead she plays with oil and ink, overlaying different viscosities to manipulate the plates to produce different colors. “I like to experiment,” White adds. “Curiosity is important, I think.”
For more of White’s work, visit rsawanwhite.com, or view at Art & Light Gallery, Greenville, SC; White will take part in the group show Women Holding Things at Art & Light in February 2026.
This story appears in our Fall 2025 issue.
