Renowned Colts Neck artist used homecoming art exhibition to foster deeper connections

By:  | October 17, 2025 |  |  Colts Neck

By Ben Miller

It is often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the same could be said about artwork. The hope of any art enthusiast is to look at a piece and feel an immediate spark – a connection to what your eyes are witnessing. For Colts Neck native and world-renowned realist artist Sangita Phadke, that is her goal with every piece of art she creates. “Everytime I create art, I want to connect with people – create that human connection,” Phadke says.

Phadke has spent the better part of the last 15 years displaying her artwork across the world, creating award winning pastel paintings while attempting to tell stories through her pieces. Her subjects sit in the dark illuminated by a strong spotlight, as if they are on stage. She focuses on pieces of fruit, a flower or a figure and arranges her compositions to create dramatic contrasts between the subject and the dark backgrounds.

Often, that sense of connection is completely left up to the connoisseur viewing her art. To take in the art alone and find meaning in it independently. However, in Phadke’s latest exhibition, “The Understory: Soft Pastel Paintings” (her first exhibition in Monmouth County since the early stages of her art career), she was able to an unique and intimate show that fostered more meaningful and deeper connections between painting and exhibitor.

“The Understory: Soft Pastel Paintings” ran this past summer at the Monmouth Museum in Middletown, right down the road from where Phadke calls home.

“The Monmouth Museum reached out to me about a year before the exhibition asking if I’d be interested in doing an exhibition at their venue,” Phadke explained, “and I excitedly accepted the opportunity to display my art amongst neighbors and my community.”

Unlike traditional exhibitions across the globe, Phadke had the creative freedom to share more about her works, and, because of its proximity, spend more time with collectors.

“Typically, when I display my art in other exhibitions the art curators write short descriptions about my pieces in my section and that is it. Which is fine, many of my collectors become collectors because they look at my art and find connection, but it doesn’t always allow me to share my full story,” Phadke notes.

Because she was the only artist featured in the exhibition at the Monmouth Museum, Phadke was more creative and open with how she presented her art.

“In total, I wrote about 15 personal stories to accompany several of my 80 pieces and shared my inspiration for them. Some of these stories I had never shared before – I was vulnerable in new ways,” she says.

Those stories allowed exhibitors to not only find connection in the piece itself, but also with the story behind it.

One of the personal stories Phadke shared was the inspiration behind a canvas she painted of a fig. Sometime last year, Phadke posted online a request to pick up some fresh flowers and fruits from residents across Central New Jersey to use as subjects for a painting. An older Monmouth County resident invited Phadke to her home to pick some figs from her fig tree. When Phadke arrived the woman shared that her father planted that fig tree in her backyard when she and her husband bought their house over 40 years ago.

“Being able to share the story about where this fig I painted came from made for a bigger connection than traditionally experienced at my exhibitions.”

Additionally, having the exhibition so close to home allowed Phadke to spend many days at the exhibition spending time with enthusiasts and discussing what the art meant to them. 

“When I travel for exhibitions, I only go to the opening reception and then leave to come home.”

This time Phadke didn’t have to travel anywhere to remain at the exhibition and hear how her art impacted the collectors.

“One of the days at the Monmouth Museum, one of my collectors purchased a painting of an orchid plant on display. She shared with me that her late husband had passed recently and on their first date many years ago, he bought her an orchid plant. Then on every Valentine’s Day afterwards he got her another orchid plant. This past February was her first Valentine’s Day without her husband and to her welcoming surprise, her son brought her an orchid plant that day. She told me that this painting made her feel her love of family and remember her husband so she bought the painting. That kind of deep connection is what I hope my art does every time I create something, and I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t been at my exhibition talking with collectors.”

Phadke has yet to decide when and what exhibitions she will do next, but she is certain it will be hard for the next one to create so much meaning and human connection – that is the power of a hometown show.

For more info, go to SangitaPhadke.com