Strand Gallery
April 11 - July 5, 2026
ArtWalk Reception
Saturday, April 11, 2026
6 – 9 PM
Artist talk at 6:30 PM
GAC’s exhibitions are supported in part by a grant from Texas Commission on the Arts. Artist accommodations generously provided by Hotel Lucine.
Preetika Rajgariah
about time
Preetika Rajgariah’s exhibition, about time, brings together culturally charged materials such as yoga mats and saris to examine cultural appropriation, body politics, intersectionality, and longing. Her work moves between memory and material, asking how the body carries history and how inherited narratives shape the way we are seen, and see ourselves. The figure, often her own, anchors the exhibition. Rajgariah bends, twists, arches, folds, and at times appears to break open. These gestures are not only physical; they mirror the mental and emotional gymnastics of navigating multiple cultural frameworks at once. Rajgariah uses the body as a profound bridge, between the personal and the ancestral, the private and the political, the sacred and the commodified. Her vibrant assemblages hold tension and tenderness simultaneously. Acts of cutting, stitching, layering, and binding become meditative rituals, expressions of care as much as thematic critique. In reworking materials that are often flattened or exoticized, Rajgariah reclaims agency and complexity. The result is an exhibition that resists erasure while honoring resilience, inviting viewers into a space where vulnerability, strength, and longing coexist.
Photo by Jalen Marlowe
Preetika Rajgariah is a multidisciplinary artist whose works examine the complicated intersections of queer identity, belonging, and cultural commodification while referencing her traditional upbringing as an Indian-born, Texas raised American. Notable residencies attended include the Houston Contemporary Craft Center, the Golden Foundation, the Momentary at Crystal Bridges, Oxbow School of Art, and the Vermont Studio Center. Performances at the Asia Society Texas and Untitled Art Fair Miami, installations at Women & Their Work, Art League Houston, Material Fair in Mexico City, and a large-scale public art commission at Rice University have all shaped her multimedia practice. Her work has been reviewed in the Brooklyn Rail, and she was the recipient of an Artadia Award and Idea Fund grant in 2021. She received her MFA from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and currently lives and works in Houston, TX.