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About the Photo
Reflections (oil on canvas). View of Rye Playland and Tikki Bar from Rye Beach. By Meera Agarwal. Art of Rye is a feature of MyRye.com where we will occasionally feature artwork of Rye, New York.
About the Artist
Meera Agarwal is a Rye, NY based visual artist and art instructor who creates vibrant paintings in oil, acrylic, and mixed media. With a keen eye for both representational and abstract forms, her award-winning paintings draw inspiration from nature’s marvels, diverse locales, and human stories. In May 2024, she became the first recipient of The Rye Arts Center’s Visionary Artist Award for her inspirational paintings as well as her commitment to uplifting the arts in the community.
She expanded into public art with Rye Arts Center’s Rye’sAbove butterfly installation and contributed to the Rye Poetry Path. Dedicated to community service, Meera volunteers with the Rye Arts Center, Jay Heritage Center and the India Cultural Center Greenwich. Meera’s art has been juried into more than 80 prominent exhibits across the tri-state area in the past decade and her art can be found in home collections globally.
“Through my paintings, I strive to evoke an emotional and introspective experience for viewers,” said Agarwal. “My work is a reflection of the duality inherent in our existence—the interplay between the tangible and the intangible, the known and the unknown. It is an exploration of the multifaceted nature of human experience, inviting viewers to pause, reflect, and find their own narratives within the layers of each piece.”
Ultimately, my goal is to create a visual language that transcends words and resonates with the viewer’s emotions, memories, and imagination. I hope my paintings serve as a medium for introspection, allowing individuals to find solace, inspiration, and a renewed sense of wonder in the interplay of abstraction and representation.”
Agarwal is also a certified Art-o-Mat artist, contributing to art vending machines nationwide. Meera holds a Bachelor’s in Management from BITS Pilani, India, and a Master’s in Corporate Communications from Seton Hall University, New Jersey.
Suggest an Artist or Artwork
Do you know about an artist or artwork (painting, photography or another medium) that should be featured on MyRye.com? The actual artwork must be of a person or place in Rye, New York. Contact us with your suggestions.
As a musical historian interested in the Big Band Era of the 30’s and 40’s, I was grateful to see Meera Agarwal’s beautiful art that captured the Playland Dance Casino in vibrant colors.
Before it was a skating rink, it was one of the popular dance band destinations on the east coast. The mirrored glass ball is still hanging above the hall that Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey’s bands played in to huge crowds.
The wooden ceiling is a great thing to look at. It has intricate colored glass diamond windows among
the supports, and is really one of a kind.
So goodbye and farewell to another treasure of the past that made the music of that era possible through its commercial use by the bands I love.
We will always have the records to play to bring it all back.