Acknowledgments:

Deeply grateful to Karen Druker, Sharvari Dixit, and Bryant Bao to have made this exhibit possible. A sincere Thank you to Karen Druker for sponsoring the collaborative artwork materials, Carol Dabb, Susie Mielke for guiding us through the fundraiser and supporting me along with ArtCircle Studio's community of talented artists. I am amazed at their positivity and cannot thank them enough for the effort they take to go the extra mile to help students and artists!

It is so exciting and heartwarming to start the New Year with an art exhibit that celebrates "Culture, Color and Light", with the intent to share the magic and beauty of creativity, to empower artists to utilize the power of their art to support communities with their vibrance, voice, wisdom, cheer, beauty, as well as through collaborative artwork to fundraising through an online fundraiser to benefit Sunnyvale Community Services.

With this intent, we put the right foot forward into the New Year as we step into 2022!

About the Exhibit:

Deepti Nanawati, owner and instructor at ArtCircle Studio, was born and grew up in India, received her training in art, architecture, and planning, and had a career in urban and environmental planning before she moved to the US with her husband to California, where they set up home and her children came into this world. She loves California to be her home as much as her roots in India that she is proud of. Her art is contemporary with an inclination to spirituality and nature and she shares her art and skills through her studio.

This exhibit has brilliant artwork created by 17 adult artists and 26 young artists from ArtCircle Studio participating in “Culture, Color, and Light”.

The adult artists at ArtCircle studio are from diverse fields: engineers, psychologists, physicians, HR personnel, managers, technocrats, teachers to name a few. They find solace in creativity and art in the highly stressful life and work culture at the Bay Area. The mediums used are pencil, acrylic, and oil on canvas. The artist's statement of adult artists and contact information is available in case anyone is interested in purchasing their work or would like to commission work from any of them.

The exhibit is divided into three sections.

Culture

We present to you our perceptions, emotions, culture as a distillation of how we perceive life, people, work and interact with different aspects of various activities we engage in.

Culture defines our daily lives, Most of us have lived a significant part of our lives in the Bay area which has a culture of its own.

MJ Fajardo paints Work Culture in a witty, humorous, catchy way. Her artwork, “work life balance” is sure to bring a smile as you relate to your own experiences working and living in this unique high tech, high stress melting pot. Her art brings a buoyancy to make it through the stress of work.

Sandhya Jaideep’s art inspired from everyday events, activities, people evokes emotions we all can relate to. She presents her splendid painting of her day as it revolves around her favorite cup of energizing coffee and the wine as tulips with oceans splashing.

In this section enjoy the unique spread of East Indian Culture that is a truly festive, colorful, vibrant culture that bases its strength on knowledge and wisdom from ages. Indian culture is one of the oldest in the world that has seen thousands of years of changes and it just keeps including every culture, religion into its fabric. It is known for diverse languages (over 48 languages, 400 dialects), customs, traditions, that have resulted in a cohesive society, family structures where entire extended families live together in the same household or neighborhood and support each other. Vibrant art forms, Spirituality, and wisdom are at the foundation of East Indian culture.

• Paintings inspired by Indian spirituality by Madhavi Deolalikar show rapture and devotion of the culmination of a pilgrim’s journey at the annual Pandharpur pilgrimage.

• Krishnakumar Nair has his journey of meditation and self-inquiry. His paintings derive from concepts based on his experiences and reflection of the divine.

• Deepti Nanawati's paintings are inspired by the creative principle, beauty, and synchronicity in nature and the spiritual fabric supporting us. She paints her visions and reflections, thresholds of wonder and faith both as a reckoning and an adventure. Creativity helps us lead fuller lives, resolve our life experiences, it remind us of the bigger picture, share joy and beauty.

• Anusha Joshi, has a point of view on the Choices We Make as we live and play here and she presents the Indian "Masala Daani", an aromatic herb and spice platter that is so dear to us and we count on them for health as recommended in Ayurveda.

• Hinduism is the primary religion, a way of life. The two major festivals “ Diwali” “festival of Light'' that comes during Oct- Nov and “Holi” the festival of Color, Divine Love, Spring” around Mar- Apr are celebrated across the country. The festivals are celebrated on an ancient system of days determined by the Hindu calendar which is based both on the moon and the sun. Diwali marks the New Year in many Indian communities, celebrates inner light, awareness, and its victory over darkness(arrogance and ignorance). Angela Hsu has captured the festivity of Diwali and Holi with her colorful strokes. She paints a wide variety of subjects that delight and bring joy and beauty to any space.

• Keerti Jammala has painted her childhood self-portrait with her brother, Indian culture celebrates this connection between siblings in the festival of ‘Raksha Bandhan” where a sister ties a sacred thread in the brother's wrist as a recognition of their connection and bond, trust, and request for protection.

• Sandhya Dabbara, loves to paint on fabric and shares her Bharatnatyam doll painted on white cotton and art inspired by the traditional "Pichwai” cow painting.

• One of Deepti's teachers, Sudhir Meher’s contemporary art on silk inspired by traditional "Pattachitra" paintings and hand painted Silk saree created by Deepti with guidance from Sanjay Ketan and Asima Chaudhary is part of this exhibit.

Color and Light

This section of the exhibit on “Color and Light” honors the original contemporary artwork of artists at the studio.

• Claudia Pfalzer, paints abstracts, which she refers to as ‘dreamscapes’, windows to your own ideas and perhaps starting points to your own stories. These will fascinate and intrigue you for sure.

• Pamela Daly is a horse lover and her equine art is simply gorgeous. Not only does she paint her horses and capture their personalities, she paints the light and colors that make them stand out to create absolutely stunning and elegant equestrian art.

• Shruti Bhutada writes poems that she envisions and feels strongly, and is now painting those visions and emotions to bring her work full circle. Her exquisite poems along with the mesmerizing paintings will touch your heart and hopefully will get you in touch with your own heart.

• Bhavya Kothari paints nature in splendid colors and vibrance.

• Tanay Vakharia has showcased a new beginning, enjoy the patient stippling and use of colors in his eye catching artwork.

• Mugdha Utturkar has a beautiful floral piece, in bright and vivid colors.

• Namrata Menon shares her fascination with new mexico’s arches and geological structures in exuberant light.

• Yana Sokolova shares her beautiful watercolor and acrylic paintings, the sunset light is bright and dazzling.

The following fascinating works from our young artists are celebrations in themselves

• Cassia Peters has showcased her fabulous colobus monkey quadriptych and the Tiger’s journey. Her art is inspired by nature and her love of animals is just amazing.

• Clara Caldwell’s walk in the woods will make you wonder what's brewing between these uncanny friends,

• Nanao Hirata’s cats waving at the setting sun

• Daniel Luitz’s backyard cat painting,

• Soham Nanawati’s notorious mice, splash painted San Francisco skyline, and slide loving penguins,

• Maya Srinivasan’s pet dog Bubble surrounded by bubbles painting, will warm your heart and engage your creative mind.

• Aum Nanawati’s seascape process art

• Eliana Etkin’s surreal sunset painting

• Sophia Shakhmin’s gorgeous fireworks display

The styles of artists showcased are diverse yet just as unique as each of us are. Paintings are absolutely gorgeous works in abstract art, realism, surrealism, showcases wit and humor, portraiture, landscape, nature, representation, impressionist and expressionist artwork. The paintings capture a wide variety of ideas and snippets from our contemporary and cosmopolitan lifestyle based in this dynamic technological hub.

Collaborative Art

• • Culture Color and Light

Process:

Deepti Nanawati coordinated and composed this painting that has been painted by her along with children and teens from age 3.5 to 17 years. The artwork is an example of their creativity, color, texture, understanding, and application of elements of art with finesse and proceed to refine their artist expression at the studio with deeper principles of art and design as they practice to enhance their skills and techniques.

Description:

The hands strongly connect, seemingly clasping, to pull each other up, it represents “Culture”. The intent of artists at ArtCircle Studio is to do their bit to create a connected, cohesive resilient community that supports and boosts each other up! The lights from the radiance around it and the color of objects get reflected, the same as how what we call culture evolves around our interactions, exchanges, and reflects the environment created.

The background above the hands, painted by teens, showcases what “Light” brings to their minds. They used tints and tones to convey the idea of radiance. It is amazing how deeply they think, feel and express beautifully through their art. They have composed dazzling galaxies, brilliant aurora, stars and constellations, sunshine, rainbows, reflections and scattered light, feelings of love and happiness they associate with light, the highest potential of an art form, light streaming through open doors, lanterns festivals, celebration, morning light streaming through open doors showing hope, awakening, progress and much more in a smooth flowing spread of opulent depiction of “Light”.

The background below the hands has been painted by our young artists, ages 3.5 - pre-teens to celebrate "Color", texture, form. The ideas they chose to represent are from real life, nature, and imagination that make their world magical. Plants and animals, insects and birds, magical creatures, flowers, vines and landscapes, shining crystals have been painted with beauty, joy, and enthusiasm. The art is like a magical ensemble making the artwork worthy of collection and appreciation.

Hopefully, the fundraiser will be a grand success and it will bring love, cheer, and radiance to its lucky owner and the help it intends to bring to families in need that are benefited through Sunnyvale Community Services.