How My Travels Inspired New Perspectives in My Abstract Art
For Ritu Raj, travel is more than a change of place — it’s a shift in perception. Discover how journeys around the world inspire his evolving abstract art practice.
Wedding, 4ft x 4ft, Playful Abstraction, 2022
For me, travel is not only about changing locations — it’s about expanding ways of seeing, feeling, and being. Every place I visit becomes a conversation partner, offering new colors, textures, rhythms, and emotional landscapes that find their way into my paintings.
Over the years, my journeys — from the bustling streets of Mumbai to the vast, quiet expanses of the Arizona desert — have shaped my approach to abstract art in ways both subtle and profound. I’ve come to realize that travel is not just an external journey; it is an inner awakening that shifts how I engage with the canvas.
In India, I am immersed in saturation — in color, in sound, in the layered energy of daily life. There is a vibrancy and intensity that seeps into my work when I return from time spent there. The bold reds, the intricate textures, the interplay of chaos and order — all reflect my encounters with that richness. These experiences taught me how to embrace density, to celebrate the beauty in complexity, to let color speak with authority and emotion.
In contrast, the wide-open spaces of the American Southwest have introduced me to stillness. The vast skies, the endless horizons, the quiet hum of desert heat — these elements have softened my palette at times, inviting more negative space, slower gestures, and minimalist interventions. In these works, I explore how stillness can hold as much weight as movement, how the space between forms can evoke emotion as powerfully as saturated color.
What I’ve learned through travel is that every place carries its own emotional texture. Cities hum with urgency. Rural landscapes offer breath and pause. Oceans pulse with infinite rhythms. As an abstract artist, I don’t aim to represent these places literally. Instead, I absorb their atmospheres, their moods, and translate them into color, form, and feeling.
Travel also invites me to see my own surroundings differently. After weeks abroad, I often return to my Phoenix studio with new eyes, noticing textures, patterns, and colors I had once overlooked. Travel resets my perception. It invites curiosity back into the practice.
Ultimately, my abstract art becomes a map of these layered experiences — not a geography of places, but a geography of feelings, of inner landscapes shaped by outer journeys. It is a reflection of movement, transformation, and the willingness to encounter the unknown, both in the world and within myself.
For viewers, I hope these works offer their own invitation to wander — to bring their personal stories, memories, and dreams into the abstract spaces I create. Like travel, abstract art offers no fixed destination, only an open path for exploration.
