Artist Reception for "Svara of Silence" at CSMA

“Svara” in Sanskrit means musical note or tone. Svara can signify the expression, the sound we emit and the space we hold. Svara of Silence is a visual exploration of quiet moments, pauses, and the negative spaces by three Bay Area artists: Saranya Chandrasekaran, Ria Sharma, and Meghna Sharma.

The exhibition brings together a shared sensibility of self-reflection through forms, gestures, and materials. Viewers are invited to interpret the power of inner silence through collective dialogues in our individual styles of realism, abstraction, and cubism, realized in paintings, collages, and mixed media.

About the Artists:

Saranya Chandrasekaran is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice is guided by the interplay of nature, memory, and transformation. With a background in engineering, she blends traditional and experimental techniques, working primarily with layered paper collage, symbolic forms, and shape-based abstraction. Her work explores thematic concepts through materiality and form, and is rooted in sustainability and the creative reuse of materials.

Ria Sharma paints dynamic geometric figures in vibrant colors of acrylic. Her Civil Engineering & construction experience has greatly driven her approach to Cubist art. Ria’s work is a visual archive of inherited values and family traditions, expressed through Indian threads and fabrics! Her storytelling work aims to evoke a sense of home. Ria merges fiber with disciplined geometric forms.

Meghna Sharma’s work is rooted in the quiet power of everyday moments. Deeply inspired by fleeting glimpses of daily life, her paintings explore the emotional resonance found in the ordinary—those subtle, often overlooked interactions that reveal the complexity of human experience. She believes every face tells a story waiting to be heard, and her portraiture brings these untold narratives to life with sensitivity and introspection.