Artstar couldn't be more excited to introduce our new curator of Southeast Asian art, Meenakshi Thirukode.  Meenakshi is a super smart and accomplished curator, writer, critic and expert on Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern Contemporary art who will be lending her prodigious curatorial talents and distinctive voice to ArtStar.  In addition to curating Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern art for ArtStar, Meenakshi is the co-founder of Project for Empty Space, a non-profit public art initiative that brings contemporary art out of institutions and into vacant urban spaces.  What a catch!

Says Meenakshi of her collaboration with ArtStar:

"While there are institutions that cater to engaging the public with art both historically as well as that of the contemporary, no one has really created a way by which some of this public could acquire a work of art to be inspired, to own a piece of culture that they identify with or have an interest in or passion for. What is interesting about a platform like ArtStar is that it demystifies this idea that you have to be of a certain income level or intellectual standing to collect art. I think there are a lot of passionate art afficianados who cant afford artists they love because it costs millions of dollars. ArtStar gives an opportunity to collect limited editions made by some of the leading contemporaries and also history tells us some of the greatest collectors started out with smaller works and prints. Online platforms like ArtStar are the most accessible and wide reaching, providing an opportunity to engage people worldwide into becoming well rounded and well informed connouissuers and collectors. Think about Artstar working alongside other online projects like Google Art Project. I think thats an amazing and important movement to be a part of. So Im pretty thrilled I get to develop an understanding of art from my part of the world through ArtStar and hope to introduce some of the most important established and emerging talent from South Asia and the Middle East."

We are delighted to introduce Meenakshi on our blog where she will be contributing blog posts about what's going on in the Southeast Asian art scene (hint: a lot) and sharing artist interviews, gallery reviews and more from New York to the subcontinent and beyond.

We begin with a link to Meenakshi's latest article for Whitewall Magazine: an interview with Prateek Raja and Priyanka Raja, the founders of Experimenter gallery in Kolkatta, India.

Intrigued?  So are we!  Read more from Meenakshi on her fantastic blog, see her curatorial profile on ArtStar, and check out this sneak peek of some of the artists she'll be introducing shortly including Samira Abbassy, Nitin Mukul, and Meena Hasan.