Art Works Downtown

In Dialogue artwork highlight: Unseen Vistas II by Salma Arastu
rust, acrylics, cotton threads, pen & ink, oil pastels on canvas, 40” x 30”

Salma Arastu is a Berkeley-based multidisciplinary artist whose work spans painting, sculpture, calligraphy and poetry. In her five-decade practice, she has created over 2,000 paintings, three public sculptures, and published seven books. Her work explores interconnection between humanity and the natural world, and has been presented in sixty solo and over two hundred group exhibitions worldwide.

Unseen Vistas-II
The white lines move like mycelium, quietly carrying life beneath the surface.
The rusted textures hold memory compressed into matter. Between them lies a threshold where unseen microbial flow begins to speak. I am increasingly drawn to what exists below visibility — the hidden networks that sustain us, the silent intelligence of soil.

In this work, I portray resilience.
Fragility. Continuity.
The earth remembers. And it connects.

June 5–July 25, 2026: Exhibition Dates
June 12 + July 10: Reception & 2nd Friday Art Walk
June 25, 6pm: Art Talk via Zoom



Salma Arastu Downtown San Rafael Arts District Downtown San Rafael MarinArts

In Dialogue artwork highlight: Learning to Breathe by Ketaki Adi
mixed media (acrylic, alcohol ink, pastels), 48” x 36”

Ketaki Adi is a San Jose–based multimedia artist and muralist. Her work shows both spontaneity and structure, shaped by emotion, nature, and color. She is actively engaged in the local arts community and has contributed to public art projects including murals for the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds and City of Sunnyvale.

Her artwork, Learning to Breathe, emerged from a quiet dialogue between her inner world and the beauty around her. The swirling background reflects a gentle turbulence of thought, suspended between nostalgia and the present. Magnolias in the foreground do not resolve the movement, but instead soften and reshape it, offering a moment to pause and breathe.

June 5–July 25, 2026: Exhibition Dates
June 12 + July 10: Reception & 2nd Friday Art Walk
June 25, 6pm: Art Talk via Zoom



Ketaki Adi Downtown San Rafael Arts District Downtown San Rafael MarinArts

In Dialogue artwork highlight: Kalbeliya-Parivratta Ustrasan:Revolved Camel Pose by Sujata Tiberwala
watercolors on paper, 11” x 15”

Sujata Tiberwala —Recipient of the 2025–26 Emerging Arts Professional Fellowship (Emerging SF). Her work has been featured in the city of Milpitas, ARTogether. She has also taught as a teaching artist as a guest lecturer at Santa Clara University, teaching on Indian art’s global influence, and at the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, Triton Museum, and other venues.

Her current work is part of Curvy Yoga series. Kalbeliya-Parivratta Ustrasan: Revolved Camel Pose is a tribute to the Kalbeliya dancers and the desert that they live in. The dance usually requires impossible level of flexibility, and their twirls bear a close resemblance to “Kathak” and Sufi twirling.

June 5–July 25, 2026: Exhibition Dates
June 12 + July 10: Reception & 2nd Friday Art Walk
June 25, 6pm: Art Talk via Zoom



Sujata Tibrewala Downtown San Rafael Arts District Downtown San Rafael MarinArts

In Dialogue artwork highlight: Dharm (Righteousness)by Shraddha Tiwari
paper maché and acrylic on canvas, 20” x 24”

Shraddha Tiwari is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator whose practice explores materiality, memory, and cultural storytelling through painting, animation, and installation.

Her work Dharm is a textured exploration of balance and moral order, centered on a radial, wheel-like form that evokes cycles of time and inner alignment. Layers of magenta, indigo, and turquoise create a dynamic tension between chaos and harmony, reflecting the evolving nature of purpose and responsibility and inviting viewers to embrace the ongoing journey of discovering and shaping one’s own dharma.

June 5–July 25, 2026: Exhibition Dates
June 12 + July 10: Reception & 2nd Friday Art Walk
June 25, 6pm: Art Talk via Zoom



Downtown San Rafael Downtown San Rafael Arts District MarinArts

Curatorial Essay by Salma Arastu

The Indian American Artists Association (IAAA) brings together artists of Indian origin whose practices unfold across the cultural, geographic, and philosophical terrains of the United States. Rooted in diverse regional histories yet shaped by the shared condition of diaspora, these artists navigate complex intersections of memory, migration, and belonging. In Dialogue presents a group of Bay Area–based artists whose works do not merely reflect dual identities but actively inhabit and transform them —where Eastern sensibilities and Western contexts are not oppositional forces, but generative conditions for new forms of visual expression.

The exhibition is conceived as a field of conversation—subtle, layered, and ongoing. These dialogues emerge between tradition and experimentation, between inherited knowledge and contemporary inquiry, and between the material and the metaphysical. Rather than asserting a singular narrative, the works collectively articulate a plurality of perspectives, revealing identity as fluid, relational, and continuously in formation.

Figuration serves as a powerful entry point into these explorations. In Meghna Sharma’s work, the intimate presence of a woman and child becomes a vessel for intergenerational continuity, where care, migration, and resilience are quietly embedded within the body. Geeta Taneja’s practice traverses the terrain between devotion and lived reality, juxtaposing spiritual iconography with the emotional weight carried by women in everyday life. Similarly, Joyita Ghose’s silk-based compositions dissolve and reconstitute feminine forms, allowing identity to emerge as both ephemeral and collective—shaped by memory, ornamentation, and cultural inheritance. Saraswathy Lakshmivaraham’s a quiet, intimate moment of self-adornment ritual becomes a luminous expression of identity, memory, and feminine grace.

A strong ecological consciousness threads through the exhibition, reflecting an expanded understanding of interconnectedness. Charmaine Hussain’s work moves between the microscopic and the cosmic, evoking cellular structures and organic networks that mirror unseen systems of life. Pragati Sharma extends this sensibility into expansive, mythic landscapes where humans, animals, and environments coexist within intricate, flowing systems. Ramya Thattai’s engagement with folk and indigenous visual languages further reinforces this connection, grounding contemporary practice in communal narratives, ritual, and ecological balance. In parallel, Saranya Chandrasekaran and Poojitha Ramalingachar draw on the metaphor of the natural world—canopy, roots, and growth—to reflect on shelter, continuity, and inherited values.

Abstraction and symbolic form offer another dimension of inquiry. Raji Musinipally’s layered portrait destabilizes the notion of a fixed self, using fragmentation and reconstruction to evoke the evolving nature of diasporic identity. Ragini Prasad’s rhythmic landscapes, with their terraced patterns and gestural marks, recall agricultural memory and the cyclical labor of land. Usha Shukla’s luminous abstractions unfold through fluid color and organic movement, while Raj Darshi’s intricately patterned compositions translate the rhythms of nature into structured visual fields. Shraddha Tiwari’s Dharma anchors these explorations in a tactile meditation on balance and ethical alignment, where the central wheel becomes both symbol and process.

Questions of identity, memory, and reclamation are further deepened through works that engage with cultural markers and histories. Hargun Mahal Mann’s installation confronts the erasure of women’s identities across generations, transforming the gesture of the handprint into an act of remembrance and resistance. Dipti Irla’s Identity and Beauty (Dot Series) distill presence into a singular, potent symbol—the dot—anchored within layered surfaces that suggest both stability and transformation. Ketki Adi’s Learning to Breathe offers a contemplative counterpoint, creating a space of stillness where nature, breath, and emotion converge. Sujata Tiberwala’s dynamic yogic figure embodies a synthesis of movement, discipline, and cultural rhythm, while Abhishek Nigam’s Kathak Dancer speaks to the dialogue between tradition and contemporary expression, where the body becomes a site of continuity, carrying forward histories while reinterpreting them through a personal, modern lens. The mandala-based works of Swati Rastogi and Smita Garg extend these inquiries into the realm of the universal, using symmetry, repetition, and language to evoke unity, balance, and the interconnected nature of existence.

Across the exhibition, materiality emerges as a critical site of engagement. Whether through intricate line work, layered pigments, textile surfaces, or gestural abstraction, each artist negotiates their relationship to tradition while simultaneously pushing its boundaries. The works resist categorization, instead proposing a sensibility grounded in openness, relationality, and dialogue.

Ultimately, In Dialogue does not seek to resolve the tensions it presents. Instead, it embraces them—offering a constellation of voices that are distinct yet resonant, rooted yet evolving. The exhibition positions Indian diasporic art not as a static inheritance, but as a living, dynamic practice—one that is continually reshaped through movement, exchange, and lived experience.
It invites viewers to slow down, to attend closely, and to enter these layered conversations —where memory meets imagination, where identities unfold across time and place, and where art becomes a space for connection, reflection, and transformation.

https://www.artworksdowntown.org/current-gallery-1337



Downtown San Rafael Arts District Downtown San Rafael MarinArts Salma Arastu

✨ Be among the first to experience In Dialogue, the newest exhibition in Gallery 1337 at Art Works Downtown in San Rafael.

📅 Exhibition Dates: June 5–July 25, 2026
🎉 Reception & 2nd Friday Art Walk: June 12 & July 10
💻 Art Talk via Zoom: June 25 at 6pm

In Dialogue invites you into a conversation—where memory meets imagination, identities unfold across time and place, and art becomes a space for connection, reflection, and transformation.

Featuring Bay Area artists of the Indian American Artists Association (IAAA), this exhibition brings together works shaped by layered exchange: between tradition and experimentation, personal history and collective memory, material and meaning. Rooted in diverse cultural lineages, these artists bring forward the richness of Eastern sensibilities and Western contexts, creating visual languages that are both grounded and evolving.

Artists:
Ketaki Adi, Salma Arastu, Saranya Chandrasekaran, Raj Darshi, Dr. Smita Garg, Joyita Ghose, Charmaine Hussain, Dipti Irla, Saraswathy Lakshmivaraham, Hargun Mahal Mann, Pragati Sharma Mohanty, Raji Musinipally, Abhishek Nigam, Ragini Prasad, Poojitha Ramalingachar, Swati Rastogi, Meghna Sharma, Usha Shukla, Geeta Taneja, Ramya Thattai, Shraddha Tiwari, Sujata Tybrewala

Curator: Salma Arastu
https://www.artworksdowntown.org/current-gallery-1337



Downtown San Rafael Downtown San Rafael Arts District MarinArts

Ketaki Adi Salma Arastu Zooxcape Charmaine Hussain Art of Shek Usha Shukla Art

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🎨✨ Where art and community meet.

At Art Works Downtown, creativity thrives in every corner—from inspiring galleries and working artist studios to community events that bring people together. Whether you're an art lover, collector, creator, or simply curious, there's always something new to discover.

Come explore local talent, connect with fellow art enthusiasts, and experience the vibrant cultural heart of downtown San Rafael.

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