Riya Saxena at Tate Modern, speaking with attendees

Riya Saxena speaking at an LSE salon, audience seated

London Climate Action Week — people engaging with the paintings

Tate Modern

London School of Economics

Riya Saxena

Art that starts conversations.

Paintings exploring nature, climate, motherhood and what we leave behind.

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What Will She Inherit?

A body of work exploring nature, motherhood and the world we leave to the next generation.

LSE salon — people engaging with the paintings

Art & Climate Dialogues

In 2026, I took six original paintings to London Climate Action Week to test an idea: could art open a different kind of climate conversation?

Three salons later, that experiment became an evolving dialogue series.

Institutional Highlight

Tate Modern

Artwork presented at the Tate Modern with Youth Climate Collaborative and Earth Minutes during London Climate Action Week 2026.

Selected Highlights

London Climate Action Week 2026

Six original paintings. Three Art & Climate Salons across London.

SYSTEMIQ — Ground Truth

Green Paradise selected as the cover artwork for SYSTEMIQ’s Ground Truth report.

Riya Saxena

Artist and climate finance practitioner.

I began painting in 2021. Over time, the subjects I kept returning to — nature, architecture, motherhood and memory — began to intersect with questions I was already exploring through my work in climate finance.

What Will She Inherit?

What do we really leave behind for the next generation?

Becoming a mother made a question I had spent years thinking about professionally feel much more personal.

Beyond what we traditionally call inheritance, what kind of world will our children receive?

What Will She Inherit? looks at nature, memory, wonder and the everyday experiences we hope will remain part of that inheritance.

Prelude

Carnival of Life

2023 · Acrylic on Canvas · 35 × 48 in.

The exhibition begins here — with life in all its rushing, glorious, overwhelming fullness. Before the question arrives, there is simply this: the world as it is.

Available on Inquiry

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I. Wonder

I paint what my daughter sees when she looks at the world for the first time.

This chapter celebrates early childhood curiosity — the elephants, the gardens, the toys that become a child's entire universe. The palette is warm, the brushwork generous, and the mood is one of tenderness and delight.

Patient Parenting

January 2026 · Acrylic on Canvas · 36 × 48 in.

This painting emerged on the canvas before I understood what it was. My daughter could spot an elephant from across a field — and I wanted to paint the feeling of that: the enormous tenderness of a creature devoted entirely to its young. The rough impasto strokes were never planned. That's how parenthood arrives too.

Available on Inquiry

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II. Abundance

The greens and the beauty of nature have been the most effective means for me to find peace. When I paint nature, I am trying to preserve it.

This chapter shifts from the intimate to the ecological. Dense foliage, flowering gardens, river ecosystems — the natural world in its full generosity. The viewer arrives here having just experienced childhood wonder, and carries with them a question: will this still exist for our children?

Creeping In

October 2024 · Acrylic on Canvas · 48 × 36 in.

When I paint nature, I am trying to preserve it — to hold it still inside my consciousness before it changes. The leaves and flowers in this painting keep growing across the canvas. That's what the natural world does when we let it. Abundance is not a given. It is what remains when we choose to protect it.

Available on Inquiry

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Green Paradise

May 2024 · Acrylic on Canvas · 36 × 48 in.

As the river ebbs and flows, the foliage sustains it — generating life and patterns I could observe for hours. This painting is an attempt to hold that feeling still: the intricate, quiet architecture of the natural world at its most generous. Water and green in dialogue. A reminder of what remains when we let nature lead.

Selected as the cover artwork for SYSTEMIQ's Ground Truth report, 2026.

SYSTEMIQ — Ground Truth

Read the Report →

Available on Inquiry

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III. Inheritance

I often reach for the paintbrush in moments of adversity and deep stress — when calm can only be found in the rhythm of each stroke.

The final chapter. Paintings made in moments of crisis — geopolitical tension, catastrophic weather, the physical weight of pregnancy. The subconscious took over and revealed what words could not. Here, the question of inheritance becomes urgent and unavoidable.

Serpentine Tiger

May 2025 · Acrylic on Canvas · 48 × 36 in.

I painted this during the India–Pakistan military escalation of May 2025. I began with aimless doodles. What emerged was India's national animal — encircled by swirling reds and oranges, wearing an expression of sorrow. The subconscious knows what the conscious mind is not ready to say. This is the painting that asks: what kind of world are we handing to our children, and what have we already lost?

Available on Inquiry

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Dreaming Peacock

January 2024 · Acrylic on Canvas · 48 × 30 in.

I painted this on a night of catastrophic rainfall in Delhi — rain that fell like bricks. Peacocks should have been dancing. Instead, the destruction was significant. This is the painting where the climate crisis stopped being professional and became personal. The peacock is dreaming of weather that no longer comes.

Available on Inquiry

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Other Work

Dystopia

Acrylic on Canvas

Many Layers of the Uterus

Acrylic on Canvas

Further works from this collection are available for private viewing.

studio@riyasaxena.com

I began painting during a pandemic, and found my subject the day my daughter was born.

Riya, painting between climate briefings and bedtime.

I picked up a paintbrush during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2021 — not with intention, but with need. Over five years, that need produced more than 80 original works in acrylic on canvas. In 2024, my daughter was born. And with her arrival, everything I had been painting around came suddenly, sharply into focus. The natural world I had always loved to paint became something I feared losing. The climate crisis I worked on by day became a question I could not stop asking: what will she inherit?

I am self-taught. My practice is intuitive — the subconscious leads, particularly in moments of crisis. I draw on nature, architecture, memory, and motherhood. I paint with vivid colour and emotional intensity, because that is how these questions feel.

“The greens and the beauty of nature have been the most effective means for me to find peace. When I paint nature, I am trying to preserve it.”

My work in climate policy and art are asking versions of the same question: what are we leaving behind?

Alongside my artistic practice, I am a Climate Finance Specialist at the Rocky Mountain Institute, where I work on innovative financing solutions for India's clean energy transition. I am also a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise (CETEx) at the London School of Economics.

Riya Saxena speaking on a panel at India Energy Storage Week

I previously held roles at the United Nations Development Programme and Asha Impact. I hold an MSc in Development Economics from LSE and a BA in Economics from the University of Delhi.

For a long time, I saw my professional work and painting as separate parts of my life. Increasingly, they are asking versions of the same question. That connection led to my Art & Climate Dialogues.

Follow the Studio

Instagram @riyasaxena.art Follow → LinkedIn Riya Saxena Connect →

Riya Saxena

What Will She Inherit?

Art & Climate Dialogues

Tate Modern

London Climate Action Week 2026

SYSTEMIQ — Ground Truth

Riya Saxena

What Will She Inherit?

Carnival of Life

Patient Parenting

Creeping In

Green Paradise

Serpentine Tiger

Dreaming Peacock

Dystopia

Many Layers of the Uterus

Art & Climate Dialogues

London Climate Action Week 2026

The Bhavan

Wellcome Trust

London School of Economics

Tate Modern

Green Paradise × SYSTEMIQ

Bring an Art & Climate Dialogue to your space

I began painting during a pandemic, and found my subject the day my daughter was born.

My work in climate policy and art are asking versions of the same question: what are we leaving behind?

A limited release of signed fine-art prints is coming after Bangkok Climate Action Week.

Get first access