Discover The Gathering by Rupinder Kaloti at OMA

Oceanside Museum of Art is hosting the museum debut of Punjabi-American artist Rupinder “Rupy” Kaloti, and The Gathering is exactly the kind of show that stays with you long after you leave the gallery.

It’s a large-scale, deeply personal body of work that reframes a story most of us think we already know. Give yourself real time to walk through it, because there’s a lot to take in.

Rupinder Kaloti The Gathering exhibition at Oceanside Museum of Art

Reimagining the Immigrant Story

Instead of focusing on immigrant struggle, this exhibition imagines what comes after, an expansive, joyful world shaped by resilience, ritual, and ancestral connection.

Kaloti builds her paintings around the belief that souls choose their families, framing the immigrant family not as defined by hardship but as a sacred destination chosen for its strength and traditions.

It’s a genuinely refreshing way to reframe a story we’ve all heard told differently before.

Punjab-inspired imagery from Rupinder Kaloti The Gathering exhibition

A Personal Mythology Told in Symbols

Kaloti weaves a personal mythology throughout the series, spanning from Punjab, India, to East San José, California.

Recurring motifs like a guiding star and a rainbow act as visual metaphors for the soul’s journey home, while a powerful tiger figure, an homage to her grandmother, who was named after the goddess Durga, stands guard throughout the work as a symbol of protection and strength.

Fire shows up again and again too, not as destruction, but as transformation, with homes that endure the blaze and emerge illuminated rather than erased.

A Painting Practice All its Own

Kaloti’s process is just as striking as her subject matter. She paints on custom, hand-cut wood panels instead of traditional rectangular canvases, creating pieces that feel more like architectural fragments or altars than typical paintings.

Her color palette pulls straight from Punjabi textiles like saris and phulkari, filling every piece with color that brings real visibility to histories that are so often overlooked.

Celebrate the Opening

This solo exhibition was awarded to Kaloti after her piece “Fire Raiser” stood out in OMA’s 2024 juried exhibition, More Disruption: Representational Art in Flux.

If you want to celebrate the show in person, OMA is hosting a public Exhibition Celebration.