Searching for the Divine

Krishna the Blue God and the Beautiful Names of Allah are both the work of the same artist, and each painting is suffused with a spirituality which cannot fail to move viewers.  For Salma Arastu there is but one god and one humanity and she reiterates this belief in painting after painting.

Born a Hindu, she embraced Islam after her marriage to a Muslim, and celebrates both religions in her art. She says, “As an artist I have the liberty to draw images which inspire me from past or present but I believe that God or Allah or Bhagwan is same – the superior power and the light of the worlds.”

Lord Krishna shows up in her paintings because he is imbued in all the stories she heard in childhood. She says, “He represents love to me – since I’m doing spiritual paintings, he just comes back to me – he’s everywhere, he’s with everyone.”

Arastu, who has lived in India, Iran, and Kuwait before moving to Pennsylvania, now lives in Berkeley, CA. One of her most powerful works is of the aftermath of 9/11 which she feels is the saddest event in her lifetime. Her works have got increasingly more positive, celebrating all faiths, rituals and people. “There was an inner force – I cannot deny that,” she says, “I want to bring people together with love and compassion and sharing, enjoying the festivals together.”

Her radiantly hued works take you into a world of diverse people coming together, chanting, telling stories, celebrating, even consoling one another. The figures are faceless, merging into one another, creating a community.

Arastu’s art is in several collections, and the buyers often tell her they find energy, joy and a peace in her work.  Now she hopes to share her gift with the larger world through her lush art laden book, ‘The Lyrical Line: Embracing All and Flowing’ which contains not only a decade of her paintings but also her spiritual poetry.

At birth, Arastu was born with a left hand without fingers. It seems the Almighty made up for that lack by putting amazing powers into her right hand, making her art a benediction and a celebration to be shared with everyone.