Modern South Asian art finds a home at Rajiv Menon Contemporary
ARTIST RAJNI PERERA (left) and gallery owner Rajiv Menon in front of painting “Dark Matter,” 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Rajiv Menon Contemporary.
Photo by Simran Malik
Contemporary art from South Asia and its diaspora has been underrepresented in North America. Newly opened in March, Rajiv Menon Contemporary is the first gallery in the western United States to focus on artists from the region. Rajiv Menon, the owner of the eponymous gallery, himself born to émigrés from India, believes in the importance of bringing the diversity and richness of art by South Asian artists into the conversation. “Art is a really important vehicle,” he said. “It’s at the crossroads of cultural understanding. It makes the story of a people.”
Concentrating on emerging and mid-career artists—and at a price point even new collectors can consider—Menon aims to make his gallery shows accessible. “It’s not just for South Asian people. It’s for everybody,” he maintained. “It can be a road to deepen humanity and universality.”
DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Rajiv Menon Contemporary.
South Asia is not a monolith: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives are diverse, with divergent religions and customs, but Menon noticed a solidarity among them in Los Angeles. “Different communities support each other,” he said. Themes of spirituality and the sacred are commonly explored in their art.
The current exhibit, “Dhum Lokaya (Smoke World),” on view through Sat., Dec. 13, features Toronto-based, Sri Lankan-born artist Rajni Perera. Powerful sculptures and luminous canvases of paint and beading on translucent polyester explore the dichotomy of feminine fragility and forcefulness with images culled from science fiction and ancient mythology. The site-specific sculpture “Swampgirly” is a fierce swamp monster that seemingly breaks through the surface of the gallery’s polished concrete floor, symbolic of women’s hidden rage. The painting “Primitive,” of a crouching naked woman covered in flies, her head a mass of flowers and fruit, shows the powerful mix of sweet blooms and sickly decay that hits one in the face in tropical climates. Perera’s painting of a figure with the skin of the prickly, stinky, soft-fleshed durian fruit, common in Asian countries, suggests this woman as an outsider whose layer of armor protects her from a threatening world. “Dance Dance Revolution,” a sculpture of feet mid-step in a traditional Sri Lankan dance, highlights decorative elements but also suggests a dance of war.
TROPICAL BLOOMS AND DECAY evoked by the painting “Primitive,” 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Rajiv Menon Contemporary. Photo by Darren Rigo
Menon is positioning the gallery as a South Asian cultural center. Besides art exhibitions, the space hosts music, dance performances, and talks.
Rajiv Menon Contemporary, 1311 Highland Ave., 310-424-0387, rmcontemporary.com.
Rajni Perera’s exhibition is on view through Sat., Dec. 13. An exhibition of work by New York-based Pakistani artist Sanié Bokhari will be on display Sat., Jan. 10 to mid-February, 2026.
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