Bay City Tribune

The Matagorda County Museum will host "The Art of India," an exhibition inspired by the wall and ceiling paintings of the Ajanta caves of India.

Bay City Mayor Richard Knapik introduced the exhibition on Saturday July 18.

"The Indian community in Bay City has done an excellent job of bringing such an interesting and educational exhibition to the people of Matagorda County," Knapik said.

Twenty-five pieces of art, created by 26 artists from Sugarland, Houston and Bay City are on display.

"We thoroughly enjoyed putting this exhibition together and we welcome visitors to this exhibition which is open to the public until Aug. 23," said Barbara Smith, director of the museum.

Dr. Rathna Kumar, founder and artistic director of Samskriti, drove to Bay City to participate in the opening.

He thanked all the artists for "creating such an impressive collection of new art and the Matagorda County Museum for putting together such a fabulous show."

As a Texas non-profit corporation, Samskriti is a pioneer in bringing highly talented visual and performing artists to the Houston area.

Samskriti held a successful international conference on Ajanta at the Museum of Fine Arts in April and since then has taken the new Ajanta artworks on road trips.

For three weeks in June, Samskriti organized an exhibition of paintings at the Houston Community College Art Gallery before coming to Matagorda County.

Future events from Samskriti include:

Sacred Spaces and Divine Places on Sep. 7 at the JCC

Bollywood Blast on Sep. 9 at the Miller outdoor Theater

Bharathanatyam recital by Indias famous dancer/choreographer Alarmel Valli on Oct. 11 at the Zilkha Hall

A saxophone concert by Kadri Gopalnath on Oct. 25 at the JCC.

For more information on these and other upcoming activities of Samskriti, please call Anil Kumar at (281) 265-2787 or visit www.samskritihouston.org.