Build Me a Garden: From Soil to Surface: Rakhee Jain Desai Explores Labor, Lineage, and Living Materials in New Solo Exhibition
The Dougherty Arts Center presents Build Me a Garden: From Soil to Surface, a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Rakhee Jain Desai, on view March 7 through April 18, 2026. Anchored by the question, “Can a relationship with land be inherited, and if so, through what means,” the exhibition examines how connections to land are developed and reimagined through labor, lineage, and living materials.
Austin, TX, March 17, 2026 --(PR.com)-- Rakhee Jain Desai
Build Me a Garden: From Soil to Surface
March 7 to April 18, 2026
Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 11, 7 to 9 PM
Artist Talk: Wednesday, April 8, 7 to 9 PM
Dougherty Arts Center
1110 Barton Springs Road
Austin, Texas 78704
Rakhee Jain Desai Explores Labor, Lineage, and Living Materials in New Solo Exhibition
The Dougherty Arts Center presents Build Me a Garden: From Soil to Surface, a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Rakhee Jain Desai, on view March 7 through April 18, 2026.
Anchored by the question, “Can a relationship with land be inherited, and if so, through what means,” the exhibition examines how connections to land are developed and reimagined through labor, lineage, and living materials. Through textile, fiber, painting, sculpture, and installation, Rakhee gives form to the intangible: memory, longing, belonging, and the emotional relationship between land and culture.
Drawing from her lineage in Rajasthan, India, Rakhee brings heritage textile knowledge, natural dyeing processes, mordants, resist techniques, and ecological methods into dialogue with a landscape that did not birth these traditions but now holds their descendants. By growing dyes in Texas soil, harvesting plant matter, and working with natural materials, she explores what it means to carry cultural knowledge across geographies and plant it in new ground.
The result is both poetic and materially rigorous. Color emerges not as decoration but as chemistry shaped by soil, water, plant matter, and time. Through craft techniques, abstraction, and sculptural gesture, Rakhee builds a “garden” of evolving cultural practices, where past and present coexist.
Community engagement and the preservation of craft are central to Rakhee’’s practice. She frequently integrates ethnic craft methods such as Batik, the Indonesian wax-resist technique, viewing ancient processes as living archives. For Rakhee, craft is not nostalgic, it is continuity. A thread that carries history forward.
Rakhee has exhibited in the United States, Singapore, and Portugal. She was selected as a featured artist for the Imago Mundi Benetton Foundation, representing Singapore’s contemporary art in the 21st Century and Beyond. In Austin, she was a first cohort recipient of the City of Austin Art in Public Places Tempo2D program. Her Batik mural A Place To Call Home is on permanent view at Austin Bergstrom International Airport. She is also a recent alum of The Contemporary Austin’s Crit Group program.
As part of the Red Thread Collective, Rakheei was commissioned by the City of Houston to create Folding Stories, suspended sculptures celebrating the multicultural history of Alief, a neighborhood in Southwest Houston.
Rakhee Jain Desai (b. Mississauga, Canada) is a multidisciplinary artist working across textile, painting, installation, public art, and moving image. Her practice explores integration, empowerment, and resilience, reflecting the lived experiences of women of color and immigrant communities.
In 2022, as part of the Red Thread Collective, she collaborated with Houston’s Alief neighborhood to gather community stories, which were woven into her sculptural work Folding Stories. In 2023, she completed Harmonic Strings, a permanent public sculpture commissioned by the City of Austin for the Pharr Tennis Center, developed through community storytelling sessions.
Rakhee is a recipient of the Big We Foundation’s She Stories Grant and the City of Austin’s Elevate Grant. She has served as a creative advisor and board member for The Thinkery and The Refugee Collective, and mentors emerging artists through the City of Austin’s Economic Development Department.
An opening reception will be held Wednesday, March 11 from 7 to 9 PM. An artist talk will follow on Wednesday, April 8 from 7 to 9 PM.
Through Build Me a Garden: From Soil to Surface, Rakhee Jain Desai asks what it means to inherit land without owning it, to cultivate culture without borders, and to let memory take root in new soil.
For press inquiries, please contact:
madison@suede-media.com
682-551-1867
Build Me a Garden: From Soil to Surface
March 7 to April 18, 2026
Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 11, 7 to 9 PM
Artist Talk: Wednesday, April 8, 7 to 9 PM
Dougherty Arts Center
1110 Barton Springs Road
Austin, Texas 78704
Rakhee Jain Desai Explores Labor, Lineage, and Living Materials in New Solo Exhibition
The Dougherty Arts Center presents Build Me a Garden: From Soil to Surface, a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Rakhee Jain Desai, on view March 7 through April 18, 2026.
Anchored by the question, “Can a relationship with land be inherited, and if so, through what means,” the exhibition examines how connections to land are developed and reimagined through labor, lineage, and living materials. Through textile, fiber, painting, sculpture, and installation, Rakhee gives form to the intangible: memory, longing, belonging, and the emotional relationship between land and culture.
Drawing from her lineage in Rajasthan, India, Rakhee brings heritage textile knowledge, natural dyeing processes, mordants, resist techniques, and ecological methods into dialogue with a landscape that did not birth these traditions but now holds their descendants. By growing dyes in Texas soil, harvesting plant matter, and working with natural materials, she explores what it means to carry cultural knowledge across geographies and plant it in new ground.
The result is both poetic and materially rigorous. Color emerges not as decoration but as chemistry shaped by soil, water, plant matter, and time. Through craft techniques, abstraction, and sculptural gesture, Rakhee builds a “garden” of evolving cultural practices, where past and present coexist.
Community engagement and the preservation of craft are central to Rakhee’’s practice. She frequently integrates ethnic craft methods such as Batik, the Indonesian wax-resist technique, viewing ancient processes as living archives. For Rakhee, craft is not nostalgic, it is continuity. A thread that carries history forward.
Rakhee has exhibited in the United States, Singapore, and Portugal. She was selected as a featured artist for the Imago Mundi Benetton Foundation, representing Singapore’s contemporary art in the 21st Century and Beyond. In Austin, she was a first cohort recipient of the City of Austin Art in Public Places Tempo2D program. Her Batik mural A Place To Call Home is on permanent view at Austin Bergstrom International Airport. She is also a recent alum of The Contemporary Austin’s Crit Group program.
As part of the Red Thread Collective, Rakheei was commissioned by the City of Houston to create Folding Stories, suspended sculptures celebrating the multicultural history of Alief, a neighborhood in Southwest Houston.
Rakhee Jain Desai (b. Mississauga, Canada) is a multidisciplinary artist working across textile, painting, installation, public art, and moving image. Her practice explores integration, empowerment, and resilience, reflecting the lived experiences of women of color and immigrant communities.
In 2022, as part of the Red Thread Collective, she collaborated with Houston’s Alief neighborhood to gather community stories, which were woven into her sculptural work Folding Stories. In 2023, she completed Harmonic Strings, a permanent public sculpture commissioned by the City of Austin for the Pharr Tennis Center, developed through community storytelling sessions.
Rakhee is a recipient of the Big We Foundation’s She Stories Grant and the City of Austin’s Elevate Grant. She has served as a creative advisor and board member for The Thinkery and The Refugee Collective, and mentors emerging artists through the City of Austin’s Economic Development Department.
An opening reception will be held Wednesday, March 11 from 7 to 9 PM. An artist talk will follow on Wednesday, April 8 from 7 to 9 PM.
Through Build Me a Garden: From Soil to Surface, Rakhee Jain Desai asks what it means to inherit land without owning it, to cultivate culture without borders, and to let memory take root in new soil.
For press inquiries, please contact:
madison@suede-media.com
682-551-1867
Contact
Rakhee Jain Desai
Madison Paine
682-551-1867
rakheejaindesai.com
Madison Paine
682-551-1867
rakheejaindesai.com
Contact
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