The Wind in the Rushes
By Oormila V. Prahlad
April 15, 2026
April 15, 2026
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Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is a widely published and awarded Indian-Australian artist, poet, and improv pianist. She has been painting for over 25 years. Her work has been published on the covers and within the pages of numerous literary journals and anthologies including Antiheroin Chic, Yale Divinity School, Amsterdam Quarterly, West Trestle Review, Adroit Journal, and Pithead Chapel. She lives and works in Sydney, on traditional Gammeragal land.
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Artist’s Note:
I am the current and inaugural Writer in Residence at Woollahra Libraries. This painting comes from my pre-residency work and serves as a gateway into my writing practice. For me, making art with my hands opens pathways to the first lines of a poetic draft.
For the past two years, I have been painting on used, dried tea bags. It is a practice I began after giving up coffee and turning to tea. I found a way to repurpose the tea bags—their delicate silk became my mini-canvas of choice. My miniature works begin with observation and move toward poetic reflection.
I have been a wanderer for as long as I can remember. Now working on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Birrabirragal peoples, I reflect on what it means to seek connection while living here as a guest. This piece is part of an ongoing series exploring the shoreline as both a physical and symbolic threshold. It is an entry point into memory, place, and interwoven histories.
My visual art sits alongside the poems I am developing during this residency. Painted with gouache, acrylics, distress inks, and brush pens, these works function as visual diary entries. It is an ongoing dialogue with the breathtaking coastline of Woollahra and the memories of other lands I carry within.