After Holi, a yellow abstract acrylic painting by Ritu Raj (acrylic on woodcut, 4 × 4 ft)

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Abstract Inquiry · 2025

After Holi

Celebration, Residue, and Pop Color Rituals

4 × 4 ft · Acrylic on woodcut · 2025

Available · in the studio, Phoenix

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The celebration after it ends — the residue of color, the surface that holds what the festival left behind.

After Holi (2025) is part of my Pop Art Collection, created as a reflection on the aftermath of exuberance. Inspired by the vibrant energy of the Holi festival — where color becomes both celebration and catharsis — this 48 x 48 inch acrylic on canvas captures the lingering traces of joy, chaos, and collective release.

The composition bursts with neon pinks, electric blues, and vibrant oranges, arranged in flat, graphic fields that collide and overlap like leftover splashes on a wall or the streets the day after Holi. But After Holi is not a depiction of the festival itself — it's an exploration of what remains when the euphoria fades, when color becomes residue, when memory takes on a synthetic glow.

In this dialogue, the work resonates with Jeff Koons, whose shiny surfaces and saturated palettes both celebrate and critique consumer culture’s obsession with spectacle and surface. Like Koons, I use visual seduction — hyper-color, gloss, and playfulness — to invite reflection on the hollowness that often follows the spectacle.

Yet where Koons leans into polished perfection, After Holi embraces the mess, the imperfections, the stains that refuse to be scrubbed clean. It is a painting that revels in the tension between joy and exhaustion, between collective rituals and solitary reflections.

As part of my Pop Art Collection, After Holi is both a love letter to color and a subtle critique of how quickly we package, consume, and discard moments of intensity.Th

Where to see it. In person at RituStudio, Phoenix, by appointment. Represented by Jarrow & Goodman, Los Angeles.

The space it needs

Wall
At least 5 ft wide
Ceiling
8 ft or more
Light
Natural light preferred — the resin catches it and the color shifts through the day
Daylight
Earthy umber, olive and forest green hold steady by a window, and the coral pink warms only slightly in late sun. Light from the side picks out the woodcut surface, the festival's residue sitting in relief.

Lives best in

Living room 5/5

After Holi rewards the room where people slow down. It changes on the second and

Hotel lobby 5/5

Strong enough to hold an arrival space, intimate enough to reward a longer look.

Details

Size
4 × 4 ft (W × H)
Medium
Acrylic on woodcut
Finish
Epoxy over acrylic. The resin lifts the color off the canvas and holds it forward, so the surface deepens as the light moves across the room.
Year
2025
Collection
Abstract Inquiry
Palette
Shadowed Umber · Charcoal Gray · Graphite Black · Earth Tone · Olive Green · Coral Pink · Muted White · Forest Green
Weight
About 22 lb
Ready
In the studio; delivery 8–12 weeks

Its reading

Read on the six dimensions of ArtGraph.

  • Texture4
  • Form4
  • Colour range4
  • Palette2.1
  • Contrast4.3
  • Abstraction Quotient2.5
Read the full reading on ArtGraph →

Keywords

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