Ghostly Times: A Return to Painting

Akiva Satnarayan
2 days ago
2 min read

Shaped by design, meditation, and the creation of my tarot deck, re entering the art world!

This Saturday 12/13 Open Studio with Currant work 2-5PM

I began my art and design career in the late 80s, when New York was humming with raw experimentation and new forms were being born every day. I was a student at Pratt, surrounded by the pulse of Basquiat, Keith Haring, Julian Schnabel, and the lingering shadow of Andy Warhol. CBGB’S had its regulars - from the Ramons to Patti Smith.

That energy—rebellious, vibrant, impossible to ignore—shaped my experience. It inspired me to start my own boutique design studio in Soho and later to explore installation and sculptural work, showing pieces in New York and Philadelphia.When I moved to the West Coast in the early 2000s, my creative path shifted. My focus turned toward consciousness studies, meditation, and yogic and Ayurvedic practices. Art making moved quietly to the background—until, slowly and unexpectedly, it found its way back through the creation of a tarot deck (The Rebel’s Deck). Designing the imagery and language of that deck reconnected me to a part of myself I thought I had set aside.

It opened the door.Through that door, painting returned—abstract, psychological, atmospheric. Work that feels less like producing images and more like listening to what moves beneath them. This year, for the first time in a long time, I’m sharing this new work publicly.The series is titled Ghostly Times—acrylic and mixed-media paintings shaped by the emotional weather of the moment we’re living in. They are subtle, textured, and a bit uncanny: the places where memory touches imagination, where presence and absence overlap.

If nothing else, I hope these paintings spark conversations—about the times we inhabit, the moods they evoke, and the way our inner landscapes respond. I’ll be sharing a glimpse of this work here, along with some newer pieces, and I would love to have you with me in this next chapter. For those who are curious, reflective, or simply drawn to explore: Welcome.