Early in her career Santosh was awarded a fellowship in Printmaking by the Government of India that took her to Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam for two years. She held solo exhibitions in Paris and Amsterdam and had the pleasure of exhibiting her prints in group shows in New York, Australia, UK and India. And was established and recognized as an artist with exceptional talent by the Cultural Department of Netherlands, before her return to India.

She has received many significant awards over the years - from the Indian Academy of Fine Arts (Hyderabad), College of Arts (New Delhi), the Andhra Pradesh Council of Artists (Hyderabad) and the prestigious Kala Shri Award from AIFACS in 1999, amongst others.

A dexterous play of my original photographs of the everyday with art softwares as well as conventional inks, pastels, pen and charcoal. To ‘narrate’ a story on my canvas, I collect characters – through my photography, from archival works of Masters, my own drawings and varied expressions I find in my travels. The collection is emotional, subliminal and sometimes personal; like a ‘working library’, with characters appearing and reappearing in a number of my works. The carefully assimilated ‘cast’ comes together to role play and express my inner concerns. I spend a lot of time, over days and hours on end constantly reconstructing and building the layers—both digital and by hand with pastels, charcoal and pen, as I deep dive into the work. The process is intuitive; the truth often revealed in the final work. My creative process is intense and each creation is a unique edition