"Ful-Fillment" by Chiraag Bhakta; screenprints on wood, resin, and teak oil; 61 x 34 x 43.75 inches; 2023

(BRANCHBURG, NJ) -- Raritan Valley Community College's Arts & Design department will present Designing the Dream State, a solo exhibition showcasing the work of Chiraag Bhakta, January 21-February 19, 2026 in the Art Gallery at the College's Branchburg campus.

The show is being curated by Arts & Design Co-Chair, Associate Professor and Art Gallery Director Darren McManus. The reception and artist's talk will be held Friday, January 30, from 5:00pm-7:00pm. The event is free of charge and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Designing the Dream State examines a component of modern-day empire building—designing of communities—through the lens of South Asian-Americans. The exhibition includes work in video, sculpture, screenprinting, and assemblage alongside Bhakta's ongoing photo-documentary series, The Arch Motel Project. Taken together, the artwork sheds light on the many ways that design enters our everyday lives—from banal marketing to the construction of personal memories.

"National Origins Formula" (2 shown in a series of 8) by Chiraag Bhakta; screenprints on eco-printed linen with Coreopsis and Marigolds; 36 x 48 inches; 2022

Gallery hours for the exhibition are Mondays, 3:00pm-8:00pm; Tuesdays, 10:00am-3:00pm; Wednesdays, 3:00pm-8:00pm; Thursdays, 10:00am-6:00pm; and Fridays, 1:00pm-4:00pm. Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC) is located at 118 Lamington Road in Branchburg, NJ.

Chiraag Bhakta is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in collecting objects and stories from various times and environments. Raised in an independent motel on a New Jersey freeway, surrounded by a rotation of extended family, Bhakta then earned a BFA in Graphic Design from the Hartford Art School in 1999.

Over the years, while working as a graphic designer for various companies and organizations, he has been exploring his personal work. Much of his art practice probes the residues that power leaves behind—how the architectures of empire linger in the mundane, and how stories drift, fracture, and recombine across borders. In doing so, he also unsettles the official lenses through which these histories are typically framed.

Bhakta's work has been showcased in museums and galleries on the east and west coasts of the United States, including the Joseloff Gallery at the Hartford Art School, where he was a Whitney Artist-in-Residence in 2022-23; the Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College; and Alter Space in San Francisco.

"I Don't Taste Spice" by Chiraag Bhakta; found objects and wood; 50 x 43 x 2.5 inches; 2023