Vaiju Saraf

Vaiju Saraf is an accomplished canvas and stained glass mosaic artist from Chicago.

Vaiju's art: She began her art journey with canvas art and then progressed to mixed medium. Her oil paintings have themes like flowers, nature foliage and landscape scenes. Her mixed medium artwork is full of innovative themes. She has a distinctive style of creating mosaics using stained glass, smalti, ceramic tiles, metal pieces, rocks, slate and even burnt wood!  The sky is the limit and she is always experimenting with different concepts and styles. She has recently started doing bold and vibrant art work experimenting with different materials and you have to see it to know what I mean!

Vaiju's inspiration: Quite simply put...from Gaudi to Verdiano Marzi! She is an avid traveler and visited over 20 countries. During her trips to Turkey and Spain, She was fascinated by the beauty of Gaudi's mosaic work at Barcelona. That drew her into the world of mosaic and she decided to master it. She enjoyed creating art fusions combining two different art forms. Recently, Vaiju attended an advanced mosaic workshop at Chicago Mosaic School, conducted by the world famous Marzi. This was an inspiring experience where she trained to focus on the flow, rhythm and composition of the mosaic and how to work on synergism between materials, shape and content. Her oil paintings have picturesque scenes from countries such as Germany, Spain, Greece and Bhutan. She loves to observe the obviously beautiful and the sometimes quirky scenes around her. One glimpse at her art and you can see that she is a truly global artist!

Vaiju's projects: She is an active member of the Chicago art community. She is part of the team which is creating a huge and an absolutely amazing mural for the Cook County Health Center. 

Vaiju's journey: Now this may come as a surprise to you, but in her past (!) life, she was a computer engineer. She worked in the tech world for 19 years before transitioning in to an artist and the journey has been delightful. She first lived in Chicago in 1997 as a young engineer for two years and now has come back to the city as a wife, mother and artist. She loves being part of the thriving artist community, especially as art brings together so many brilliantly talented people together! Vaiju is excited to see what her future has in store for her!