As a 3D animator, I really treasure my background as a miniature painter and actively seek to integrate it into my work. I think a distinctive animation style can be achieved through the combination of the rich pictorial space characteristic of traditional Pakistani miniature painting with current 3D animation practices. I think using the miniature painting and playing with it in animation, 2D and compositing software creates a very interesting merger of the past and present.

Fareen Butt
Web: www.fareenbuttart.com

Neil Chowdhury
Web: www.neilchowdhury.com

Neil Chowdhury is an artist working in photography and digital media. His work explores the relationships between individuals, their societies, and environments in different cultures. Currently, he is working on a project exploring his Indian heritage, entitled “Waking from Dreams of India.” Mr. Chowdhury is an assistant professor and director of the photography program at Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, New York. He has also taught at Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan; and the University of Washington, Seattle.

Uday K Dhar

As an artist of South Asian descent, who was born in England, and has lived for 40 years in the United States, my art practice is about the challenge of translating non-western ideas into forms that can reach others unfamiliar with that philosophy and culture. It is also about re-imagining the received history of forms, and making them alive through reinterpretation. It is a way to reinvest tradition with new meaning and relevance.

Reet Das
Web:www.reetdas.com

I am shaped by my experience, memories, and dreams of growing up around animals in urban settings. Besides the many pets my family had, I frequently noticed urban wildlife on the rooftops of buildings, crevices in the sidewalks, and the gaps within abandoned buildings. They are tied to us as we are tied to them. The witnessing of these daily, seemingly insignificant struggles of the urban wildlife as a kid growing up in Brooklyn was fortified with Kipling’s “Just So Stories” and the second “Jungle Book”,

Delna Dastur
Web: www.delnadastur.com

Over the years as I developed as an artist, I came to the realization that the process of making a piece of art intrigues me as much as its subject matter. I am never satisfied with using one medium exclusively and always attempt to combine several.

I embraced charcoal as my primary medium for several years, using a variety of improvised tools such as ear syringes, brushes, charcoal powder, and many different types of erasers to manipulate it. I occasionally added ink and pastel to further increase the complexity of the drawings.

Tehniyet Hussain

My recent work focuses on social injustices, specifically inflicted upon women, all over the globe. I feel like women, throughout the centuries, have bore the brunt of the sinister and barbaric side of human civilization. It was she who was buried alive at birth. It was she who was named a witch and burned at the stake. It is she who is still killed for ‘honor’ of the beasts. The flame of savagery against her is still alive. 

Srinivas Krishna
Web: www.divanifilms.com

Internationally-recognized for its inventiveness and style, award-winning artist and filmmaker Srinivas Krishna’s body of work straddles several genres, media and art forms. He launched his career in 1993 with the international hit Masala, “a testament to its director’s extraordinary understanding of the workings of the cinematic medium,” according to The Critical Guide to Contemporary Directors published by Wallflower Press, London. Masala premiered at the Toronto and Sundance Film Festivals, garnered rave reviews and was sold worldwide. In 2002 the British Film Institute voted it among the Top Ten South Asian Diaspora Films of the 20th century. His second feature, Lulu, had its world premiere in the Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival.

A native of Delhi, India where he studied printmaking and painting at the College of Art; Shaurya Kumar graduated with his MFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2007. Since 2001, Kumar has been involved in numerous prestigious research projects, like "The Paintings of India" (a series of 26 DOCUMENTARIES films on the painting tradition of India); "Handmade in India" (an encyclopedia on the handicraft traditions of India); and digital restorations of 6th century Buddhist mural paintings from the caves of Ajanta in Central India.

She received a BFA and a MFA degree in printmaking from Visva Bharati University, India, and an advance graduate certificate in contemporary non-toxic printmaking from RIT, NY. She has exhibited extensively in the Caribbean and Europe.

Avani Patel
Web: www.avanirpatel.com

I started out looking for visual equivalents of certain intriguingly abstract ideas of Indian philosophy - the very abstract concept of Brahman.  And it was when I turned my attention to the sound of chants that I began to be interested in the appearance of words.  This led to the incorporation of the Devnagari (Sanskrit) script into my work.     

Ellipse 14
Printing Inks, Charcoal and Acrylic on Arches Paper
22" x 30"
2010

Tara Sabharwal was born in Delhi, studied painting in Baroda and completed her Masters from the Royal College of Art in London on a British Council scholarship. As a student in London, the Victoria and Albert Museum bought her work and she showed at Bernard Jacobson and Christopher Hull galleries.

Satyakam Saha
Web: www.satyakam.org

In the early 2009, I started working on a series of collages by recycling found cardboards/magazines from the streets of NYC. It has been an exciting adventure ever since. They have led me to explore the mysterious and unusual with a new aspect of rhythm and surprise..a 'form' of plastic freedom combined with a 'kind' of new architecture. They are pictorial representations, often from memories and myths.

I have tried to arrive at some sort of universal metaphor with these mixed media works. The titles for these mixed media works presented themselves in humorous ways.

Pallavi was born and raised in India and immigrated to United States in 1997. She received her BFA and MFA from the Faculty of Fine Arts Baroda, India and received her Ph.D. in Art History from India's National Museum Institute of History of Art and Conservation, New Delhi under the guidance of Prof. Ratan Parimoo.

Born in Karachi, Pakistan in December, 1983.  Sara Suleman has shown work at the Philly Philm Slam, December 2010, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, April 29 - May 8 2010, San Francisco International Women’s Film Festival, April 7- 11, 2010, "The Art of Text", Temple University, April 2010, International House Philadelphia, May-July 2010,  Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, 2009, and at the Transplants Show, Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia, 2008. This is her first major US exhibition.  

Roshani Thakore
Web: www.roshanithakore.com

As a first generation Indian American, I am continuously exploring the dual discourse between my Indian ancestry and my contemporary American experience. Through the languages of post-minimalism and abstract expressionism, I am interested in examining the elements of my cultural background to create organic forms that allude to history, time, natural forces and lost cultures.

MD Tokon
Web: www.mdtokon.com

Md Tokon is in love with color and in love with the cities he grew up in. His destination is unknown. But he is ready to walk on his land as long as he is not tired. Born in Bangladesh, he grew up in a neighborhood not known for supporting artistic endeavors. But with the support of his family, he soon realized his dream. As a teenager he was inspired to pursue a career as an artist. When he was about 11 he made his first real painting. City life, the surrounding atmosphere and social structure have made a great impact on him.