Western Gallery & Sculpture Collection, WWU

Opening Oct 8 Are Your Hands Clean? features recent paintings by South Asian American artist Rajkamal Kahlon. Through her work, the artist recovers the humanity of anonymous women from 20th century German anthropological and scientific books. Enlarging and overpainting the figures, Kahlon addresses how trauma and the body are at the center of political violence. The hand-colored surfaces animate the figures, and Kahlon adorns her subjects in contemporary fashion and accessories inspired by radical feminists and armed revolutionaries. The exhibition includes the monumental Die Völker der Erde (People of the Earth), 2017, comprised of 300 drawings atop pages from the 1902 book of the same title.