We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amita Bhakta a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Amita, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
Humans are drawn together by the languages they share. Through words, they form bonds, build communities, and give rise to culture.
India is a living testament to this truth. Its Constitution recognizes 22 official languages, yet hundreds of other tongues and dialects weave through daily life. This vast chorus of voices reflects immense diversity, yet it carries a thread of unity. At the root of many of these languages lies Sanskrit—a wellspring of wisdom,
poetry, and beauty preserved in
ancient texts and scriptures. This spirit flows through generations, including the 5.2 million Indian
Americans who live, work, and call
this land their home.
It is from this river of tradition that my own art emerges. To share with my neighbors, my community, and my fellow Americans a glimpse into the Indian American spirit, I turned to Sanskrit for inspiration. I lifted lines of timeless thought and transformed them into visual form upon my canvases and into my sculptures, creating my latest body of work: Moments of Radiance.
Amita, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Adolescence is a season of change, and mine began with a crossing oceans by leaving India at fourteen and arriving in the United States with my family. In a single breath, I became not only Indian, but Indian American.
To migrate is to scatter and gather all at once: to leave fragments behind while carrying new ones forward. In the act of settling, we lose and we gain, we bend and we grow, until a new self takes shape. I surrendered
years to this transformation, yet now I
return to myself—tracing identity in
lines, shapes, and colors. So I sculpt with clay and paint my narrative onto my canvases. My art is the language of that search, a map of
becoming, always unfolding, always
alive and am in pursuit of discoverying.
This creative journey has carried me through many mediums—inks that flow like thoughts, acrylics and oils that breathe with color, and encaustics that hold the warmth of memory. Over time, my paintings began to take new forms, unfolding into wearables—scarves, shawls, sarees, and bags—each carrying a fragment of the same light.
At my recent Moments of Radiance exhibition, several visitors voiced what had long echoed within me—the wish to gather this body of work into a fine coffee table book, a luminous record of the journey it represents.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
To be human is to express—to reach beyond silence and shape our inner worlds. My paintings and sculptures are my language, my way of speaking in color, form, and texture. Yet they come alive only when another’s eyes meet them, when a quiet thread of recognition binds the work to a viewer’s heart.
Recently, I have been fortunate to share these stories in galleries across the country—from the glow of Los Angeles to the desert light of Santa Fe, to the quiet warmth of Troy, Alabama. With each exhibition, people have written to me—emails, letters, small notes—carrying words of connection. In those gestures, I am reminded that art is not solitary; it is a conversation, a shared pulse that continues long after the piece has left my hands.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
In the 6th century, Indian artists were entrusted with the Chitrasutra, a Sanskrit text that reads like a sacred handbook of art. Within its verses lies a reminder that art is not meant merely for worldly delight, but as a pathway to the spiritual experience. I believe those awakenings belong not only to the artist who creates, but also to the viewer who beholds.
Yet, centuries of colonization Indians community drew us away from this intimate bond with art, which was something once woven into the very fabric of daily life. My hope is that they will habitually step into art centers and art museums without hesitation, linger before the work, and feel within it a quiet
recognition of inheritance—the luminous threads of a culture that is
theirs to create a culture of art within their families. And in their visit hopefully they will come upon my exhibition, Moments of Radiance. I wish to reawaken that connection, especially in cities with vibrant Indian American communities.
My visual interpretations
drawn from the Vedas, the
Upanishads, the Ramayana, the
Mahabharata, Bhagvad Gita and the timeless poetry of Kalidasa—are not bound by bloodlines. They speak of truths that are universal which we all are sreaching. My art seeks to carry these themes across boundaries, inviting every viewer to pause, ponder, and find their own reflection in its light.
People create to to express their own within and with it to connect with other beings, because in this process they find themselves little more. I too wish to follow this path of self discovery thru connections and expressions.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.artbyamita.xom
- Instagram: @artbyamita2020
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1CVjutW3d1/
- Youtube: Amta Bhakta
