Thiagarajan’s practice also reflects her lived experience navigating visual impairment. She intentionally incorporates texture, creating visual and tactile works that invite audiences to engage beyond sight alone.
Alongside mandalas, Thiagarajan paints portraits of South Asian women, drawing from everyday life and ritual to capture grace, resilience and power.
In recent years, she has expanded into installation art, creating work that explores thresholds, ritual and duality.
Beyond her studio practice, Thiagarajan is deeply committed to community-building and leadership in the arts. She founded the Colorado South Asian Artists group in 2025 to foster connection, increase visibility and advocate for greater representation of South Asian artists in the Colorado arts ecosystem. Their mission is to be the curators of their stories—centering narratives from within the culture, rather than through an outsider’s lens. Thiagarajan is also a National Leaders of Color Fellow (2024–2025, Colorado), using her leadership platform to support diversity, equity and inclusion across arts spaces and help create pathways for underrepresented artists.
More than 900 of Thiagarajan’s original artworks are in collections across the USA, India, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, Belize, Chile and Costa Rica.
To get involved with the Colorado South Asian Artists group click here or follow Bala on Instagram @ArtByBala or on her website.