Portfolio

Umayal Annamalai is a Charlotte-based mixed media artist whose work explores the sacred intersections of identity, belonging, and feminine sovereignty.Through color, movement, and the rhythmic language of kolam, she transforms pain into power and boundaries into bridges of connection, inviting others to return home to themselves in harmony and wholeness.

Drawing from her South Indian Tamil roots, Umayal integrates kolam a traditional art of sacred geometry and rhythm with abstract expressionism to explore how boundaries create belonging.

Her work centers on healing, belonging, and feminine sovereignty, drawing from intuitive abstraction, and somatic creative practice. As both an artist and cultural bridge-builder, she supports individuals and communities in reconnecting to emotional expression, embodied safety, and authentic selfhood.

As an artist, Umayal’s practice explores the interconnectedness of ancestral memory, identity formation, and the energetic patterns that shape belonging. Through kolam-inspired geometric forms, layered textures, movement, and color, she creates visual and sensory environments that invite viewers to feel  not just look. Her series investigate boundaries as sites of protection, connection, and transformation.

Artist Statement

My work explores the relationship between boundaries, belonging, and feminine sovereignty. I create art as a way of remembering the self returning to the body, the breath, and the voice that once felt unsafe to express.

My work is rooted in the belief that creativity is a pathway back to the self  a way of remembering, reclaiming, and embodying every version of who we are. As a Tamil woman, mother, immigrant, and multidisciplinary artist, I draw from the rituals of my heritage, the intelligence of nature, and the emotional landscapes that have shaped my becoming.

At the heart of my practice is Kolam, the Tamil threshold art drawn daily with rice flour. Kolam marks the meeting point between inside and outside, structure and flow, self and world. Through printmaking, I transform this ephemeral tradition into contemporary works using copper-plate etching, woodblock printing, and mixed media. Flowers, birds, and organic forms weave through the geometric lines, reflecting the harmony between discipline and intuition, ancestry and imagination.

My Tree-Woman pieces honor the feminine as rooted, expansive, and sovereign  a symbol of grounding, resilience, and rising. Birds appear as guides of intuition and freedom. Flowers embody growth, blossoming, and emotional renewal. Each motif is a part of my own journey toward wholeness, navigating identity, belonging, boundaries, and balance.

In contrast, my Moon Dancers etching series enters a more surreal, dreamlike world. Women wearing mushroom-like hats dance beneath the moon, representing the many versions of the self  the playful, the wounded, the wise, the hidden, the reborn. Mushrooms symbolize regeneration and the unseen worlds beneath the surface; the moon represents cyclical intuition, emotional memory, and feminine knowing. These figures move freely in a space where shadow, joy, and transformation coexist.

Together, these bodies of work explore what it means to return to oneself:
to honor the discomfort and the beauty,
to hold both the rooted and the untamed,
to reclaim every fragmented part as essential.

Through line, movement, repetition, and symbolism, my art becomes a living language one that celebrates ancestral memory, inner sovereignty, and the freedom to evolve.

My intention is to create work that invites viewers to pause, breathe, and meet themselves.
To feel the quiet blessing of belonging.
To remember that wholeness is not something we chase 
it is something we return to.

My work is an invitation to embody every version of you to remember, reclaim, and root into your sovereign, creative, and interconnected self.