Avalanche and Artist Bala Thiagarajan Partner to AANHPI Heritage Month

Bala Thiagarajan partnered with the Avalanche to create a jersey and hat to celebrate Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Thiagarajan is an immigrant Indian artist working from her studio in Arvada, Colorado. Born and raised in Chennai, India, she came to the U.S. to pursue a PhD in Biology at Kansas State University, earning her doctorate in 2006. After several years in academia, she made the decision to shift careers and become a full-time artist in 2012.  

Her creative practice sits at the intersection of culture, science and math. She channels her passion for Indian traditions into artworks that honor both permanence and impermanence. Using piping bags and squeeze bottles, she creates raised textures of dots and lines in acrylic paint on canvas, and applies similar techniques in clay through slip-trailing. These meditative, detailed works are grounded in geometry and organic repetition, with a rhythm and luminosity inspired by the vibrant silk and cotton saris worn by women in South India.  

New this season, fans can enter to win the hat designed by the artist. To enter to win Thiagarajan’s hat, click here.

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.