Aparna Rangnekar is a visual artist, a muralist, an art educator, a community-engaged arts facilitator and a curator. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sir J. J. School of Arts in Mumbai, India. Following her undergraduate work, where she specialized in mural painting, she also pursued postgraduate studies in ceramics and pottery. In a career spanning over two decades, Aparna Rangnekar has created works of art across a variety of styles, genres and substrates as a mode of exploring form, texture and different mediums. Her unique style of using vibrant colours and bold textures to create striking compositions with a childlike simplicity has fast become her signature. Her early works have been an assortment of abstract and expressionist experimentation, and she has now returned to her original passion for creating large-scale murals.
Aparna is also engaged with various art groups in the community and has facilitated several community projects in the Greater Toronto Area and in Milton for the Ontario Culture Days over the past seven years. She strongly believes that community-engaged arts play an important role in augmenting positivity, a sense of pride, making connections and building meaningful relationships within your community. She sits on the board of directors of the prestigious Arts and Culture Initiative of South Asia – ACISA, a not-for-profit organization that organizes multiple events in Brampton to promote cross-cultural understanding and has taken on the role of Festival Director & Curator of ACISA’s Visual Arts of South Asia – Arts Festival that brings unique South Asian art to the mainstream art scene of Canada.
Aparna takes huge pride in her Indian heritage of arts and culture and has learned various Indian traditional art forms from masters in these arts. Using this knowledge and experience, Aparna is on a mission to educate, promote and inspire a love for Indian traditional arts, allowing everyone to experience the essence of the various facets of arts that are very unique to the South Asian Subcontinent.
Aparna is a returning artist to Arts Milton’s Exclusively Inclusive programming, having designed a traffic box mural that appears at Main Street and Thompson Road across from the First Ontario Arts Centre.
We Grow Together,two hands are in an open and welcoming gesture, signifying a symbolic safe space for everyone to share feelings, thoughts, knowledge and experiences. The two faces are gazing at each other in admiration, in respect and understanding. The flora and fauna surrounding these key features symbolize the harmony and growth arising from awareness of a community’s interconnectedness. Aparna has used a few elements of the Indian folk art form – Madhubani, such as using a double line highlighting critical factors in the composition, stylized shapes and patterns.
In this mural, diverse people are standing with arms raised upwards to an arch encompassing all of them. The arch in this artwork symbolizes leaving our old thought processes and embracing new awareness of seen and unseen impact mankind makes by being kind, respectful and inclusive. People with raised arms are communicating a message that each of us belongs under the arch, regardless of race, culture or gender. The lotus-shaped flower in the centre of the arch symbolizes enlightenment and renewal of this understanding. The flowers on both sides signify the blooming of positive thoughts, reflection and environment. The stylized figures and the treatment of flowers have been drawn in an Indian folk art form called Phad from Rajasthan.
(This Traffic Box is located at Main Street and Thompson Road Across from the FirstOntario Arts Centre)
Strongest are those communities that welcome, celebrate and respect each other’s cultures. Where trust is present, where every person gets to flaunt their cultural identity and individuality with pride and where everyone blossoms & grows stronger together.
Some other works of the artists:
Tell us what you think! We would love to hear your comments and thoughts about the Exclusively Inclusive Project. Email us at info@artsmilton.com