As part of loveMELT’s ongoing collaboration with Paradice Palase, I’m sharing intimate conversations with emerging artists building practices rooted in inquiry, innovation, and sustainability.
This loveMELT features Saloni Parekh, a visual artist and educator whose work traverses painting, video, sound, and installation. Born in India and currently teaching at Oberlin College, Saloni’s practice is an open-ended search, one that explores the layered meanings of the term god. Her work recognizes its historical, mnemonic, and emotional weight while navigating the consistencies within religion and the contradictions that create division.
…if someone or if humans create something it should have a capability of self-destructing. —Saloni Parekh
In this conversation, we talk about growing up with rituals, migrating across cultures, and how questioning becomes a medium of its own. Saloni shares how she thinks about creation and destruction in both her art and her life.
We get into:
Creating God through painting, video, and sound
How immigration turned her curiosity inward
Copper, sound, and sacred materiality
The religious and cultural use of color
The tension between preservation and release
Making art from “I don’t know”
Interdisciplinary storytelling and installation
Exploring ambiguity as a form of truth
Capturing the subtler emotions of doubt and skepticism in art
What it means to preserve, destroy, and question all at once
Saloni Parekh
Paradice Palase
August 30–31: Sculpture Park at ChaNorth
September 16: Paradice Social at Seven House Gallery
Plus: Insights Lounge, Curator’s Cabana, and more programming
PS–
This is one of several conversations in this loveMELT x Paradice Palase series. More artist reflections to come. Drop your thoughts in a comment.
