We were lucky to catch up with RIA RAJAN recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi RIA, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

In 2022, after over decade of working as a creative profession as a freelance designer and illustrator, I went back to school to get an MFA in studio art for which I moved across continents from India to the US, to study and make art in NY.
It was a big leap of faith and I landed in NY on the eve of my 37th birthday to get myself a degree and be an artist. Coming back to school, as a mature student, was both challenging and exciting, and wearing multiple hats of being both a student as well as an educator in training put me on both sides of art education, further cementing my love for using art as a tool of critical thinking and meaning making.

RIA, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Like most good things, I fell into my creative life through friends.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding part of being an artist is being able to follow a strain of an idea and exploring it from many perspectives, through different mediums and methods using my own unique experience as the fertile stimulus to create from. Being an artist is more like a way of life. It informs how I see, how I move through the world, how I engage with complexity and contradiction. Creative practice allows me to dwell in uncertainty, to stay curious, and to remain attentive to the ephemeral. It’s about cultivating a kind of awareness and responsiveness to the world around me.
What I find most meaningful is not just the finished work, but the process—the slow unfolding of an idea, the unexpected turns, the moments of friction or clarity. That continual movement between the internal and the external, the personal and the shared.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2022, I took a leap of faith and made a major pivot in my life and career—I moved from India to the United States to pursue an MFA in Studio Art. This transition wasn’t just geographical; it was a profound shift in how I chose to engage with my practice, my questions, and my future. Leaving behind the familiarity of home, community, and an established creative rhythm, I committed to living, studying, and making art in New York for three years.

This move was made possible through a full scholarship and a Teaching Assistantship, which not only supported me financially but also opened a path I hadn’t fully envisioned before: the role of the artist as educator. Teaching became a vital part of my graduate experience—one that challenged and expanded me in ways studio work alone could not. It allowed me to think critically about pedagogy, mentorship, and the reciprocal relationship between making and teaching.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rrad.studio
• Instagram: @_rrad.studio_