Vaidehi Kinkhabwala is a multi-disciplinary artist who grew up in India and now lives and works in New York City. She received her MFA in Studio Art from Montclair State University; bi-cultural experiences, gender disparity and struggle ensuing from the transition to America have fundamentally shaped her work.

Shreya Mehta is an award-winning visual artist who confronts questions of identity and spirituality in her vibrant and eclectic practice. Her art—compositionally defined by its intricate layers and kaleidoscopic patterns—defies categorization, employing both representation and abstraction to showcase the latent energy that can be found at the intersection of the individual and the universal. Mehta was born in India and raised in Antwerp, Belgium, where she attended the Royal Academy of Art as its first woman of Indian origin. After graduating with the prestigious V.R.I.K.A Award, she eventually settled in New York, where she continues her practice. Mehta’s work has a global presence and has been exhibited at galleries and fairs in New York, Dubai, and Mumbai. Her paintings can also be found in several prestigious private collections such as that of the Prime Minister of India.

Rita Patel is a self-taught mixed-media artist whose artworks incorporate surface design, abstract painting, illustration and relational art. Her work asks the question: what if we could transform the world by experiencing beauty? This experience is a rich source of inspiration that informs her creative process at the intersection of beauty, well-being (social, emotional, and mental) and creativity. 

Sarbani Ghosh is a Bengali-American artist living and working in Queens, New York. She graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Miami (Florida) and MFA in Painting and Drawing from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been exhibited at numerous art fairs and galleries in Miami, Paris, Seoul and New York City.

Having lived across the continents of Asia, Europe and North America, Miloni Shah has always drawn inspiration from her natural surroundings. She started her journey with oils and acrylics but over time has explored and found comfort in gouache and water-colour mediums as well. Her strength lies in her understanding and control of layering soft textures with fresh color palettes. She describes her ‘Dreamscape’ series as being one that “…is all about celebrating nature—sunsets, waterfalls and peaceful, luminous reflections—and the small details that make us pause and briefly enjoy a moment in time.” One of the most inspirational years of Miloni’s life was spent in Bath, UK—where she received her MSc. in International Business Studies—and the city being a UNESCO world heritage site with its Roman architecture was nothing short of an art haven for her. She later moved to upstate New York and now resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

Meera Agarwal is a New York-based artist pursuing a post-corporate second career as an artist and art instructor. Self-taught, Chennai-born Agarwal has been painting for three decades and works with oil, acrylics and mixed media. Her paintings are both representational and abstract inspired by nature, her native India and travels. She aims to evoke an emotion, a memory, strike a personal chord or just intrigue the viewer.

Shalu Juneja is an Indian artist who works across diverse media such as charcoal sketching, painting and sculptures. Her art delves into human beings and nature, especially the female form and has a figurative style. She loves to experiment with different techniques and the spontaneous use of mark making and various textures on the canvas.

Indra Persad-Milowe is a visual artist living and working in Salem, Massachusetts. She works primarily with acrylic paints on canvas and her work focuses on personal experiences and reliving her childhood memories while growing up in Trinidad in the ’50s and ’60s. Her paintings reflect the many cultural traditions of Trinidad and Tobago including traditional Hindu ceremonies, African folklore as well as the natural beauty of the islands.

Author Fereshteh Daftari’s newest book Persia Reframed presents Iranian art to a Western audience with a fresh, panoramic perspective that will hopefully lead to greater discussion and understanding of artistic movements and styles from the region.

In a region that is commonly framed within a certain socio-political context, there are female Iranian abstractionists such as Monir Farmanfamaian and Behjat Sadr who were able to cross the necessary boundaries to have their work noticed in both the East and the West.