The Bellefonte Art Museum in collaboration with Christina Dhanuja, writer and co-founder of Dalit History month, presents Heralding Utopias: Conception of a caste-less, class-less, state-less world.

Heralding Utopias brings together visual art created by Dalit and Adivasi artists, whose conceptions of a world are free from caste, class, and state divisions. This exhibition, showcasing the work of fifteen artists from around the world, takes its inspiration from the utopian vision of the 15th century Indian saint-poet Guru Ravidas. Titled Begumpura, the saint imagines a place with no pain, taxes, or terror; no one is third or second in this land, and everyone is a friend of another.

Exhibition Committee Members: Christina Dhanuja, Lori Fisher, Pat House, Nalini Krishnankutty, and Alagammai Meyyappan

This exhibition is sponsored in part by The Happy Valley Adventure Bureau, The PA Council on the Arts, Pan APIDA Circle, and a community of local supporters.

Paper & Canvas

Acrylic on paper

Saree & the city

My sibling calls this a prophetic painting, which I did years before I wrote the piece, "Being Dalit, Doing Corporate."

Acrylic on paper

Working woman

A re-portrayal of the Indian working woman, whose image gets lost in the many westernized and colonized renditions.

Acrylic on canvas

Clingendael

Inspired by a beautiful spot in the the Clingendael gardens of Den Haag.

Acrylic on paper

Flowers of my Childhood

As a little anthophile, I imagined flowers to only be tulips, bluebells, and carnations.

Acrylic on canvas

Beijing Autumn

Inspired by Beijing's most glorious autumn trees that don't find mention as much as the North American ones do.

Ink on paper

Appa in the rain

In memory of a rainy day when Appa carried me back from school. The umbrella wasn't big enough for the both of us, so he was getting drenched. Yet, he wouldn't put me down.

Acrylic on canvas

Replica

A brighter non-human replica of Claude Monet's The Summer, Poppy Field.

Acrylic on paper

Self portrait

I did not intentionally attempt a self-portrait but it ended up being one.

Watercolor on cement

Silence

A spontaneous painting I did on the bedroom wall of our railway quarters. They painted over it a few months later.

Watercolor on cement

Forest blue

Another spontaneous painting I did on the bedroom wall of our railway quarters. They painted over it a few months later.

Spring & Summer

Miniature paintings inspired by Den Haag

Summer & Summer

Miniature paintings inspired by Den Haag

Fall & Winter

Miniature paintings inspired by Den Haag