Listen now (35 min) | Chrysalis Artists | Art can show us the pain and trauma and suffering of the world, and often it does. But art can also go the other direction. It can reveal the beauty, harmony, and unity of the world. The canvasses in Salma Arastu’s series of paintings, We Are All One, are full of soft colors, continuous lines, immersive habitats that flow into one another, and—sometimes—two-dimensional representations of humans and animals occupying the same space, echoing cave paintings. Salma found the continuous line in her study of Islamic calligraphy when she was living in the Middle East. She was born into the Sindhi and Hindu traditions in Rajasthan, India, and then embraced Islam after marrying a Muslim. It was this continuous line that became a central element of her approach to painting and a central technique she uses to express the ecological views she finds in the Quran. She seeks to transcend difference through her art and find oneness and interconnectedness in a world that continually ravages ecological systems around the planet. Since the 1970s, Salma has been exhibiting her work nationally and internationally and writing about art. She currently lives in San Francisco, where I had the pleasure of visiting her in her studio and seeing so many of her wonderful paintings. For more, see the episode page at ChrysalisPodcast.org.
10. Salma Arastu — We Are All One
10. Salma Arastu — We Are All One
10. Salma Arastu — We Are All One
Listen now (35 min) | Chrysalis Artists | Art can show us the pain and trauma and suffering of the world, and often it does. But art can also go the other direction. It can reveal the beauty, harmony, and unity of the world. The canvasses in Salma Arastu’s series of paintings, We Are All One, are full of soft colors, continuous lines, immersive habitats that flow into one another, and—sometimes—two-dimensional representations of humans and animals occupying the same space, echoing cave paintings. Salma found the continuous line in her study of Islamic calligraphy when she was living in the Middle East. She was born into the Sindhi and Hindu traditions in Rajasthan, India, and then embraced Islam after marrying a Muslim. It was this continuous line that became a central element of her approach to painting and a central technique she uses to express the ecological views she finds in the Quran. She seeks to transcend difference through her art and find oneness and interconnectedness in a world that continually ravages ecological systems around the planet. Since the 1970s, Salma has been exhibiting her work nationally and internationally and writing about art. She currently lives in San Francisco, where I had the pleasure of visiting her in her studio and seeing so many of her wonderful paintings. For more, see the episode page at ChrysalisPodcast.org.