Abstract painting with intertwining lines and digital textures, evoking a fusion of organic fibers and data streams.

Fibers and Data

Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 5ft x 5ft
Creation Date: 2023
Collection: The Pulse of Life

"We live as analog bodies in a digital sea—this painting is the static, the signal, and the silence." – Ritu Raj

In Fibers and Data, Ritu Raj creates a complex abstract matrix that captures the collision of two forces shaping our age: the tactile remnants of the body and the invisible architecture of information. A key work from his The Pulse of Life Collection, this 60 x 60 inch mixed media painting fuses textured layers with geometric disruption, mapping a psychological topography of our digital entanglement.

The painting pulses with a dense, erratic surface. Threads of color—rust, ochre, electric blue—interlace like organic fibers woven into an electric grid. Behind them, faint binary patterns emerge and dissolve, hinting at structure while resisting clarity. The eye travels like a data packet, rerouted across interruptions, glitches, and feedback loops.

There is a kinship here with the work of Julie Mehretu, whose complex spatial abstractions chart geopolitical, architectural, and emotional territories. Like Mehretu, Raj blends gestural marks with conceptual underpinnings—inviting viewers to decode a world that is always shifting.

Yet Fibers and Data also carries intimacy. It’s not just about systems; it’s about the hand within them. The brushstrokes resist automation, favoring interruption over precision, imperfection over polish. This is the ghost in the machine—the self asserting its presence in a grid that seeks erasure.

Raj, a polymath with deep roots in both technology and art, brings personal resonance to this piece. Having moved through the worlds of code, systems, and sensory exploration, Fibers and Data feels autobiographical—a visual manifestation of what it means to be a human thread in the digital weave.

This painting does not offer resolution. Instead, it hums with tension, complexity, and presence. It is a mirror to our modern experience: layered, encoded, fragmented—and very much alive.