The Collage Art of Aruna

Aruna Neela Bahadoorsingh Khan, the creative heart behind Soul Stitch Studio, is a Baha’i from Canada who is an ever-flowing fountain of inspiration and support for other artists of all stripes and backgrounds. For Aruna, creating art to inspire and ignite personal and collective transformation is not only her passion, but her soul’s work. Aruna believes that art is a unifying vehicle, a universal language that requires no words.

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Aruna has been making art for most of her life. While she has many creative initiatives, offerings and art projects, she shared the following about some of her collage pieces depicted above:

Much like the tapestry of life, layering thread after thread of life experiences, my work started to take on a life of its own evolving into expressing itself through collage–melding my love for so many art mediums, my life stories, my voice, stitch, paper, physical fragments of the world, etc. I LOVE stitching on paper. It gives me such a cathartic yet sensory stimulating rush–that sound the needle makes when it finally punches through heavy textured paper! (I’m sure it does not have the same effect on other people, but I guess that “my thing”!)

During COVID, I was thrilled that my first collage compilation on paper entitled, “Many Faces, One Voice” was accepted to be part of a Baha’i exhibition in North Vancouver. My piece was a series of “postcards” exploring the COVID experience through Canadian eyes. Each postcard depicted a Canadian of a different age, gender and ethnicity. My goal was to take the viewer on a journey through each setting and, in the end, realize that regardless of our outer differences, we all actually can identify with any of these vignettes. This is the power of unity in diversity. We are all one.

Simultaneously, during COVID […] I battled so many questions about myself, my life thus far and my future. Through this tumultuous metamorphosis I emerged with a burning confirmation that the rest of my life will be devoted to using my art to help humanity, particularly women. I want my work to help women flourish. As the Baha’i Faith outlines, women make up one wing of a bird’s flight. I believe that we have our unique set of challenges and triumphs and strengths. I want to address these and help women navigate with passion, purpose, authenticity and unity through this journey called LIFE!

She also graciously said:

As I look back on my life, I recently realized that every seemingly unrelated aspect of my life has in fact all been interrelated and that is my work as director of marketing and fund development, my work as a realtor organizing collaborative community events, my work at home and my work as an artist, etc, all are point in the same direction–to serve God and help to unite humanity in whatever way I can.

I am grateful to Aruna for sharing this with us and for connecting with me.

You can find more of Aruna’s work by following her Instagram account: Soul Stitch Studio.

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Sonjel Vreeland

In her innermost heart, Sonjel is a stay-at-home parent and a bookworm with a maxed out library card but professionally she is a museologist with a background in English Literature. She currently lives on Prince Edward Island, an isle in the shape of a smile on the eastern Canadian coast. Sonjel is a writer who loves to listen to jazz when she's driving at night.