— Media & press
Ritu Raj
Painter, author and entrepreneur
Ritu Raj paints from RituStudio in Phoenix, Arizona, where thread takes the place of the brush and gravity becomes a collaborator. He is the creator of ArtGraph, a language for abstract art, and the author of two books published in September 2026: The Shape of Seeing, on how abstraction arrives, and The Unalgorithmic Self, on what AI cannot reach.
— Bios
In his own words.
Use any of these as they are. Each one copies with a click.
Short
Ritu Raj is an abstract painter, author and entrepreneur. He is the creator of ArtGraph and the author of The Shape of Seeing and The Unalgorithmic Self.
One paragraph
Ritu Raj is an abstract painter, author and entrepreneur in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the creator of ArtGraph, a language for abstract art, and the author of The Shape of Seeing, on how abstraction arrives, and The Unalgorithmic Self, a philosophical inquiry into what AI cannot reach.
Full
Ritu Raj is an abstract painter, author and entrepreneur. He works from RituStudio in Phoenix, Arizona, where his signature technique, Organic Movement, lets thread take the place of the brush and makes gravity a collaborator. He has made more than 250 paintings and is represented by Jarrow & Goodman in Los Angeles.
He grew up in New Delhi, the son of the art critic K.B. Goel, among the painters his father wrote about: Souza, Husain, Raza, Swaminathan. Mathematics and computer science gave him another grammar for the same question, and three decades of founding and building companies, among them Avasta, SideCar, Wag Hotels and Diamond Foundry, tested it at scale. The painting, the systems and ArtGraph, his language for abstract art, are one inquiry.
He is the author of The Shape of Seeing, on how abstraction arrives, and The Unalgorithmic Self, a philosophical inquiry into what AI cannot reach.
— The books
Two books, one inquiry.
The Shape of Seeing
The Genesis of Abstraction
Twenty chapters on painting, perception, silence and attention, from a childhood among India’s modernist painters to a studio in the Arizona desert, and the length of string that became the Organic Movement paintings.
The Unalgorithmic Self
Art, AI, and the Future of Human Thinking
Thirty chapters in six parts on the body, emotion, memory, imagination, identity, uncertainty, love, ethics and art: the part of human life that refuses reduction. Not a book against AI. A book about remembering ourselves.
Review copies, print or digital, are available to journalists, reviewers and hosts. Ask for one.
— Conversation topics
What we could talk about.
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01 · The Unalgorithmic Self
What AI cannot reach
Memory, imagination, identity, uncertainty, love: why a profile can approximate your tendencies but can’t contain your becoming, and why that matters now.
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02 · The Unalgorithmic Self
Writing about AI, with AI
The book was written openly in conversation with an AI model, with the ideas and values his own. What that collaboration showed him about where the machine stops and the person begins.
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03 · The Shape of Seeing
A length of string
In 2020 he dipped ordinary string in pigment, and what it left behind became the Organic Movement paintings: an experiment gone awry, and precisely because of that, true.
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04 · The Shape of Seeing
Growing up among India’s modernists
A childhood in New Delhi, the son of the critic K.B. Goel, with Souza, Husain, Raza and Swaminathan at the dinner table. What it means to inherit a way of seeing.
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05 · Both books
One obsession, many forms
Painting, building companies and writing as one inquiry rather than a career change. He did not run kennels before Wag Hotels or drive a taxi before SideCar, and he is not a historian of abstraction. Each began with a problem of his own.
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06 · ArtGraph
A language for abstract art
Abstract painting has no vocabulary for what it does to people. ArtGraph is his attempt to give it one: six dimensions that read the painting, three that read the encounter.
— Lines to quote
From the pages.
“A machine can answer a question. Only a human can wonder.”
“A profile may approximate your tendencies. It can’t contain your becoming.”
“AI will multiply intelligence. But only humans can multiply meaning.”
“Perhaps abstraction is simply what happens when words run out.”
“Abstraction is not a style, but a state of mind.”
“A work of art is not an object; it is a relationship between two awarenesses.”
— Press
In the press.
- CanvasRebelMeet Ritu Raj
- Artist CloseupInterview with Ritu Raj
- ArtsyString Theory, a solo show at Jarrow & Goodman
- Artist HighlightThe Organic Movement series
- Press release · Oct 2026The Unalgorithmic Self examines what AI cannot measure about human life
- Press release · Oct 2026Painter Ritu Raj publishes The Shape of Seeing
— Images
Free to use with coverage.
- Ritu Raj, portraitCredit: [PHOTOGRAPHER]
- In the studioCredit: [PHOTOGRAPHER]
- The Shape of Seeing, coverPainting: Orbit of Blue
- The Unalgorithmic Self, coverHigh resolution
For images of individual paintings, browse the catalog or ask for high-resolution files.
— Contact
Write to Ritu directly.
Interviews, review copies, talks, studio visits. Every message reaches him, not an agency.