Category: Visuals
Painter
Country: India

About

Salma Arastu is a painter who blends spiritual themes and images into her work. Although Salma was raised as a Hindu in India, she converted to Islam after marrying her husband.¹ Educated in both India and the United States, Salma has traveled widely and has lived in Iran and Kuwait. She has won several awards for her work in India, New York, and Pennsylvania, and has shown her work in various exhibitions across the world, such as at the Museum of Modern Art in India, and the Reading Museum in Pennsylvania.²

Salma has noted that folk art, miniature art, and Arabic calligraphy are the three primary influences in her work.³ She fuses Eastern spirituality with Western painting techniques, creating ethereal layers of color and movement in expressing the human personality.⁴ Over the years, Salma has created a large collection encompassing a variety of forms ranging from abstract art, sculptures, digital art, to Arabic calligraphy. Moving between surrealistic to realistic forms, her paintings reflect a yearning to transcend social, cultural or religious barriers in an attempt to inspire unity and tranquility. “I always thought my works were personal stories,” she said. “They reflect my thinking, my personality, my joys and my sorrows. But when I sit to describe them I know it is not personal, these are the stories of love and fears, dreams and anticipations of us all, the whole humanity.”⁵

[1] “Artist’s Biography,” Imanworld.org
[2] “Salma Arastu,” Art Jaz Gallery
[3] Salma Arastu’s Official Blog
[4] “Salma Arastu,” Art Jaz Gallery
[5] ibid.