There Are Rivers in the Sky, a new show by Saruha Kilaru in Delhi, looks at water as memory through glass, textiles and print.
About the exhibition
There Are Rivers in the Sky opens at Sridharini Art Gallery, Triveni, with a preview on Saturday 11 July 2026 at 6 pm and runs until Friday 17 July 2026. The solo exhibition by Saruha Kilaru takes its title from Elif Shafak’s novel and proposes that water is not just matter but a store of memories. Works on display include glass sculpture, textile installations, printmaking, monoprints and tactile glass plates.
Artist practice
Kilaru, a synesthete, makes work that links colour, sound and touch. Her practice moves between careful observation and intuition. Her delicate watercolour monoprints register fleeting moments that hover between appearance and disappearance. The show frames these prints as small, quiet studies of flux and ephemerality, where colour acts like language.
Artist: Saruha Kilaru | Cover Waves | Sequins on Organza, with UV Print | 900x100cm (2024) | Image Credit: Sridharani Art Gallery
Curatorial vision and method
Curated by Priyanshi S, the exhibition treats water as both subject and method. Kilaru uses water’s behaviours—reflection, refraction, flow—to shape how the works look and feel. The curator foregrounds interconnectedness and perception, inviting the viewer to think about how landscapes and lives are carried by water across time.
Highlights and materials
Glass plays a central role. Kilaru collaborated with master glass artisans in Firozabad, notably Bunty Bhaiya, to produce fragile sculptures that reimagine threatened and overlooked aquatic species. Techniques such as flameworking and assembly soften glass’s usual hardness, making it appear vulnerable and organic. A set of tactile glass plates asks viewers to consider touch as a way of knowing. Textile works turn light into material: sequins shimmer like sunlight, while Waves, a nine-metre embroidered piece made with Delhi artisans, explores nine shades of white to show subtle differences within sameness.
Artist: Saruha Kilaru | Installation image at Jodhpur (2025) | Image Credit: Sridharani Art Gallery
Themes and ecology
There Are Rivers in the Sky connects personal perception with larger ecological concerns. The works question how water records histories, remembers lives, and links species and habitats. The exhibition asks visitors to look and listen to the natural world, and to consider care and fragility as central to ecological thinking.
Artist: Saruha Kilaru | Installation image at Jodhpur (2025) | Image Credit: Sridharani Art Gallery
About the artist
Saruha Kilaru (b. 1998) is a multidisciplinary artist who works with water across media. She completed an MA in Print at the Royal College of Art. Kilaru has shown at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair (2021), Southwark Park Galleries and the MP Birla Millennium Gallery (2022), the London Original Print Fair, Jodhpur Art Week 1.0 (2025) and with Dhi Contemporary, Hyderabad (2026). She won the High Prize for Artistic Excellence (2022) and took part in the Travers Smith Art Program. In 2024 she co-founded Calhi Studios in Delhi, a collaborative space for experimental, material-led practice.
Exhibition details
Title: There Are Rivers in the Sky
Artist: Saruha Kilaru
Venue: Sridharini Art Gallery, Triveni, New Delhi
Preview: Saturday, 11 July 2026 | 6 pm onwards
On view through: Friday, 17 July 2026
This article has been created from the press kit shared with Abir Pothi. For press releases and related queries, write to editor@abirpothi.com
Cover Image: Artist: Saruha Kilaru, Green Waves, watercolour monoprint, 40x32in (2022), Image credit- Sridharani Art Gallery
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