Art Incept

Incept in Baroda
2024-09-08 11:00 - 2024-10-07 18:30 (Asia/Kolkata) | 227, South Point Mall, Golf Course Road, Gurugram, India
Faculty of Fine Arts at MS University in Baroda was founded in 1950. For the first time in independent
India, a program of study was introduced to offer courses and research facilities in the field of arts. It
was envisaged that art is an integral part of life for the new citizens. The establishment evolved to gain a
reputation of the foremost institution of the country for contemporary art education. With pedagogues
like KG Subramanyan, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, and Jyotsna and Jyoti Bhatt, MS University remains
one of the most sought after till date.
Art Incept made its maiden trip to attend the annual student exhibit, coupled with studio visits and artist
interactions in the summer of 2024. Incept at Baroda presents carefully selected artists that are skillfully
breaking the boundaries. Each of the practices included in the show hold immense promise to develop
unique artist practices in years to come.

– Rahul Kumar (August 2024)

Prithwish Daw - Solo Show Awardee, Inception Grant 2023
2024-08-23 11:00 - 2024-08-30 19:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Triveni Kala Sangam
Prithwish Daw – Solo Show Awardee, Inception Grant 2023

The exhibition explores Daw’s practice and artistic journey as he explores the popular culture of West Bengal specifically through the artist’s vision of Bengali culture, society and architecture. Prithwish explores the cityscape of Kolkata from an unseen perspective, choosing ‘walls’ as a representative icon to speak about the massive wave of urbanization, land mafia, and real estate, erasing the existing aesthetic culture of his hometown. The walls present the idea of advertisement, representation of political climate through a satirical lens.
Prithwish Daw (b. 1990, Kolkata). He received his bachelor’s from the Indian College of Art and Draughtsman ship and his master’s from Rabindra Bharati University. He has been part of various exhibits namely the Birla Annual Show (2021), the CIMA Award Show (2022), the Lalit Kala Academy’s 62nd National Exhibition (2022), the 19th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh (2022), Inception Grant 2023 Finalists amongst others.
This exhibition is an extension of our continued collaboration with Triveni Kala Sangam.

Hiraeth
2024-08-23 11:00 - 2024-08-30 19:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
A solo exhibition of Pankaj Chouhan
Mentored by Prima Kurien
Writing for Gulam Mohammed Sheikh’s solo exhibition Returning Home—a retrospective of works from 1968 to 1985 at the Centre Pompidou, Paris—Gieve Patel recorded the artist expressing, ‘It is not that if you see pink, you paint pink. A Mewar painter does not use red because there is red earth around him. It has something to do with a full body experience of the environment.’ This elemental experience of pinks, greens, and blues filling our landscape is as savourable as it is visual for the Indian painter. It is an immersive sensuality that transforms our perception of the natural world; a flood of colours that washes over all that is flesh. In this inundation lies Pankaj Chouhan’s paintbrush, daubing over the changing faces of our cities and farmlands.
Hiraeth introduces us to a mystical landscape of hazy colours and hypnotic brushstrokes that affirm Chouhan’s belief in the continually transforming aura of the natural world. His paintings—dissipating canvases of disastrous urbanisation and greenlands lost—inform us of an abstract vocabulary that is innocent and childlike, yet wilfully committed to narrating the exacting toll of our footprint on the environment. In this tale, Chouhan’s landscape does not merely hinge on the depiction of a tree, sky, or ground; no, their presence is incidental. As a colourist, he focuses our attention on the elements that form the landscape: his palette. By emptying commonplace colour associations, his earthy shades of browns and greens exude richness as well as quietude. What makes this remarkable is that such silence is constantly punctured by everyday environmental collapse; it is a violent whirlpool of watercolours where Tyeb Mehta’s Trussed Bull prances around—helplessly hurtling towards cataclysm.
The works on display here are storehouses of violent natural—nature’s—energy; an energy that smoothly dissolves into thin air with each stroke of Chouhan’s brush. One is reminded of J. Swaminathan’s works: straightforward brushstrokes that are immediately grasped in a single viewing, but remain potently lodged in our minds, resonating deeply, and capturing our attention overtime. In this concentration of light and pigment lies the lived experience of an artist that has been fighting ‘bechaini,’ an air of despondency due to unmitigated ecological catastrophe and environmental degradation. Chouhan’s world navigates itself through a historic tradition of art-making that has filled the manuscripts of the Hamzanama as well as the waterfalls of Song dynasty paintings. It is the intuitive making of a geography—a representation of cities and towns, of nature and wildlife—and its very unmaking. This is his masterful borrowing, and his personal resistance.
*Hiraeth, from Welsh, is a nostalgic longing, a bittersweet grief for a place which has been lost to us.
Written by Shankar Tiwari

CROSSROADS
2024-07-08 11:30 - 2024-07-31 18:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | 227, South Point Mall, Golf Course Road, Gurugram, India
UPCOMING SHOW

CROSSROADS – ON THE TIPPING POINT
Designed and Edited by Prima Kurien
Exhibiting Artists: Abhiskek Dodiya | Brojeswer Mondal | Cyrus | Pankaj Chouhan | Parul Sharma | Ram Dongre | Rinku Chaudhary | Santanu Dey | Savitha Ravi | Sunil Yadav | Viswanath Kuttum
The exhibition showcases the evolution of each artist, whose journey has been closely connected with our vision.
“Crossroads” launches our new gallery space in Gurgaon that is dedicated to building a vibrant art community in the millennium city. Meticulously curated to communicate our journey of growth, commitment, and passion, the show features 11 artists, many who have been with us since our inception in 2020.
These artists, who started as emerging talent, are now at the “tipping point” of launching themselves as mid-career artists. Experience their journey of self-discovery, vulnerability, and perseverance, culminating in expressions that truly define their uniqueness, strength, and commitment to the future of art. We are immensely proud of each of their individual journeys and are excited to invite you to experience this beautiful and thoughtful show that will truly move you.
The exhibition also serves as a testament to the dynamic interplay between form and substance, inviting viewers to witness the transformation of abstract ideas into concrete artistic expressions.

TERRA
2024-04-05 11:00 - 2024-04-22 19:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
TERRA
Curated by Prima Kurien
Participating artists:
Dhaivat Shah l Kumar Misal l Nishchay Thakur l Yash Desai l Zainul Abdeen
Crust. Let us begin with a provocation: There is no imaginative leap of aesthetic transcendence that waits around to surprise us when we stand before the artworks presented here. A serrated scrubland of photographs, prints, and mixed-media objects, we are instead introduced to a landscape of disinterred artefacts—talismans caked in mud, soil, terra that are equally acute as ecological relics of our time, as well as philosophically obscure regarding their artistic purpose. This exhibition, with its empire of geotic territories, conspires to navigate us through a terrain of environmental speculations, shifts, and severances; it is an address to our damaging footprint that has parasitically settled onto terra firma. Peeling away layers of urban settlement and industrial antagonism, this showcase of artworks leads us to the borders of human intervention and natural phenomenon—a preternatural disquietude where greed and violence carve out an impossibly hostile terrain of biological disaffections and disasters. In encountering such artistic practices, we find ourselves in the throes of an alienated surrounding that is keen to let us walk around, only barefoot.
Mantle. With the formal and conceptual motifs of Dhaivat Shah, Kumar Misal, Nishchay Thakur, Yash Desai, and Zainul Abdeen, we are sprung onto an artistic intent that inexhaustibly ploughs through the surface and depths of the Earth. It is a resilient marriage of form and pigment speculating upon a tormented landscape that is slowly (yet surely) challenging the terrans and their anthropocentrism. We encounter an archive of gashes and marks—from Dhaivat’s aggressive yet mediated act of altering the representation of landscape in photography, to Zainul’s nomado-artistic performance of interacting with seeds, dust, barley, worms, sand, and other agrarian ephemera—this is an ontological dance of graphite and pencil that acknowledges a planetary collapse; this is Titian’s unequivocal The Rape of Europa, an all too familiar mythology of soil versus blood. Thrust upon a feral existentialism where natural rejuvenation is replaced with foreign hostility, Kumar’s expressive woodcuts—adversarial hybrid forms that are of the land, for the land—and Nishchay and Yash’s interpretive abstractions that grieve the loss of our pastoral memory understand the fraught, even militant aesthetic that defines our terran ecology today. It is the recognition of a tipping point, an indignant augury of environmental collapse lest we mend our ways.
Core. These are artworks that therefore settle on a plane of immanence—an immersion, an introspection that no longer refuses to realise the sullying touch humans have left on Terra. Against our superficial and immediate conveniences, this exhibition instigates to decipher seismic shifts, ecological pasts, and inventive futures that remain undiluted in the passionate artistic visions on display here. This is a treasure hunter’s shipwreck; a glinting pearl of hope hidden behind the pessimism of whirlpools and thunderstorms where Terra’s artists embody Italo Calvino’s Mr. Palomar when he says:
‘It is only after you have come to know the surface of things… that you can venture to seek what is underneath. But the surface of things is inexhaustible.’
Written by Shankar Tripathi

INCEPTION GRANT FINALISTS SHOW 2024
2024-03-03 11:00 - 2024-03-10 19:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Triveni Kala Sangam
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INCEPTION GRANT FINALISTS SHOW 2024
Art Incept is pleased to announce the fourth edition of Inception Grant, bringing together a group of 16 emerging artists, showcasing multifaceted narratives under the lens of varied creative expressions.

Inception Grant Finalists
Aashish Moga | Abhishek Chakraborty | Aditya Puthur | Agwma Basumatari | liactuallee | Oliva Saha| Poorvi Sultania | Pratap Manna | Rajat Kumar | Saadia Batool | Sakshi Kasar | Salar Marri | Samiran Dey | Sanal Pt | Yash Desai | Zainul Abdeen

The Inception Grant, initiated in 2020 in response to the challenges faced by emerging artists during Covid, has evolved into a significant stepping stone for South Asian artists, receiving over 1,000 applications annually. More than a financial aid, the grant provides access to our mentors and curators, facilitating year-long development for awardees.
In an exciting addition, Art Incept introduced the Inception Grant for Art Writers in 2023, expanding our commitment to fostering diverse voices in the art world. This new initiative complements our mission by supporting emerging art writers in South Asia, providing them with a platform to explore and articulate the evolving landscape of contemporary art.
Having awarded 11 grants and year-long mentorship programs since 2020, we proudly collaborate with esteemed institutions such as Triveni Kala Sangam and the Amar Nath Sehgal Foundation, amplifying the grant’s impact. As part of the Inception Grant, we present the Tacita Dean Award, selected by renowned visual artist Ms. Dean.
Art Incept’s aim remains to foster fresh, compelling narratives from across South Asia, shaping the future of contemporary art.

India Art Fair 2024
2024-02-01 11:00 - 2024-02-04 19:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | NSIC Exhibition Complex, Okhla Phase III, Okhla Industrial Estate, New Delhi, India
In a State of Flux
Curated by Prima Kurien,
An exhibit that has brought together distinct visual vocabularies to illustrate the meaning of home, displacement and migration. Every facet of imagery reflects an artist’s definition of environment and their own interactive function in it. Encouraging us to delve deeper into the complex ideas of shifting cities, evolving domestic spaces and their impact on the human spirit and mind.
There is an innate need to tell a story of a world that was left behind and how its remnants exist in the present. Ram Dongre’s canvases speak of mural traditions that celebrate the wealth of vernacular practices pervading generations emphasising on an intuitive relationship between forms and intangible stories, whereas Viswanath Kuttum’s creative process delves into the idea of folktales native to the land of Andamans, a cacophony of forms and ideas that have evolved and mutated with his shift to the metropolis.
Memory plays an important role in each artwork, as encapsulated by Ayushi Ojha’s work dissecting the memory of oceanic ecosystems while Santanu Dey’s artworks are visual homages to the might of nature with poetic undertones. These poetic reveries are felt even more deeply in the intricately carved marble works by Cyrus emulating pieces belonging to the lands of yore.
In the odyssey to narrate the stories of their surroundings, Pankaj Chouhan and Brojeswer Mondal view the transient essence of the topographic surfaces as part of their visual vocabulary. Similarly, Sunil Yadav juxtaposes his perceptions of bucolic settings against cityscapes in his geometric mappings.
Conversely, going inward Rinku Choudhary’s figurations are firmly planted in the surreal world, purely cerebral in nature. Subsequently, this exploration of the inner mind is illustrated through minimalistic drawings by Parul Sharma.
Encapsulating each artist’s journey, be it in the corporeal world or metaphysical one, the
exhibit ‘In a State of Flux’ consciously deciphers and delineates the power of visual
storytelling – unravelling the unique and the universal through the lens of ten individual
voices.
Written by Juhi Mathur

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CATALOGUE FOR “IN A STATE OF FLUX”

Memory Keepers II
2024-01-29 11:00 - 2024-02-15 18:30 (Asia/Kolkata) | 227, South Point Mall, Golf Course Road, Gurugram, India
As part of the IAF Parallel, presenting seven emerging women artists who explore the essence of nostalgia through their contemporary practices. Each artist, with a distinctive approach, unfolds the memories
and experiences that have uniquely shaped her.
What distinguishes this exhibition is the individualistic use of materials and processes employed by each artist. These range from stitching metal sheets to employing cyanotype printing with embroidery, welding metal to construct scaffolding that symbolizes the coexistence of order and chaos, engaging in delicate paper cutting, to using old tetra packs as unconventional printing plates.
Explore the world full of distinctive creative expressions coming together!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CATALOGUE FOR MEMORY KEEPERS II

WORLD WITHIN WORLD WITHOUT II - MUMBAI
2023-12-07 10:00 - 2023-12-10 19:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | IFBE, 10-12, Calicut Rd, Ballard Estate,, Mumbai, Maharashtra, 400001, India
17 contemporary emerging artists respond to the idea of home and the world.
Co-curated by Prima Kurien & Rahul Kumar
Explore the essence of the ever-expanding universe and the interplay between the material and spiritual realms through the lens of contemporary art at our upcoming exhibition, “World Within…World Without II.”
The exhibition delves into the fundamental reality of the cosmos, shaped by the forces of nature and the profound impact of external influences on our inner world. It contemplates the coexistence of matter and soul, acknowledging the eternal interdependence and perpetual collision between the outward and inward dimensions of our existence.
Early-career artists, breaking free from traditional norms, present a diverse array of contemporary art practices. Liberated from conventional influences, their work reflects an immediacy of response, displaying vulnerability, fragility, and rawness. These artists embark on a journey to find their unique language, challenging the established norms of the art world and society at large.
In its second edition, the exhibition responds to the dynamic city of Mumbai, a phenomenon defined by its resilience, cultural richness, and distinctive dichotomies. The artworks capture the city’s acceptance, hope, and all-pervasive optimism, mirroring its status as a cultural melting-pot and a highly charged space.
Join us on this exploration of inner and outer worlds, where art becomes a medium to understand, question, and celebrate the intricate dance of existence.

The Residue of Space and Body
2023-11-03 11:00 - 2023-11-06 19:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
The Inception Grant Solo Show by Yashwant Singh | Curated by Rahul Kumar
In partnership with Triveni Kala Sangam

It is fascinating to consider the idea of space, and when does it really occur. Does it have to be
contained in physical boundaries, or could it be a metaphysical idea? For Yashwant Singh space is
an ever-changing continuum. He believes that humans are witness to this phenomenon. Having
grown up in urban cities and small homes with paucity of space, he desired to engage with
locales where nature took over what was abandoned by the humans. In the process of this
encounter and dialogue, Singh found himself a part of the space. A meditative phenomenon, he
ceased to see himself as a foreign identity. And in doing so, his art has elements of romanticized
reminisces of the past, the déjà vu. He relates his body with the objects and space around it. He
finds a rhythm and coordination while wondering, both physically and mentally. The filtration
and imagination lead to his imagery where elements from nature often shape space with his
own body. The use of twigs and grass allows him to explore the possibilities of his medium.
There is uncertainty and an unplanned approach through the very process he uses to create his
work. The physical manifestation for Singh is through his deliberate bodily gestures. The
element of chance is also akin to the very existence of the grass and bushes that grow
seasonally. They are unplanned, constantly changing, and seem to exist without a particular
purpose. The space they occupy are less interfered with by humans and they largely remain
unnoticed. Singh creates unique mono-prints in real-size using these found elements. The
process of image making for him is intuitive. The use of soot and carbon as a remanent of fire
have natural connotations of the residue, the distilled matter on one side and the circular nature
of our cosmos on the other. Metaphorically, it is a confluence of nature, body, and space. The
monochromatic works of Yashwant Singh encourage viewers to experience the idea of
overlapping occurrences and inter-relationships of space and body.
– Rahul Kumar

We Live To Fight
2023-11-03 11:00 - 2023-11-06 19:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
The Inception Grant solo show by Md. Zobayer Hossain Joati | Curated by Prima Kurien
In partnership with Triveni Kala Sangam

To say that Zobayer’s photographs merely document a sparring culture that has gripped the
underbelly of Bangladesh would at best deliver a meek punch to the cheek; the knockout jab,
however, comes when we realise what his images truly contain: an unbridled and volatile
tension that has long gone unnoticed.
No more. With We Live to Fight, Zobayer introduces us to the sweaty and dingy underground
world of flexed muscles, black-and-blue bruises, and cold staredowns – it is a spectacle, a
floodlit circus of hidden arenas and second-rate halls where we glimpse the fighter in a constant
state of preparation for the fight of its life. These are figures that rarely sit idle, and Zobayer’s
camera suspends such moments of exaggerated movement, teasing the viewer that is ready to
ask for more. In such brooding and dramatic documents, there emerges an implicit
understanding between us and the photograph: both acknowledge the catastrophic obviousness
with which a fight shall end, and yet, Zobayer holds back from letting us see the finishing blow.
His images spiral us into a rancorous frenzy, asking, demanding, to ‘let them have at it’; behind
drawn curtains and locked doors, we are left to our baser instincts, and this is where he zooms
in for the bigger picture.
Zobayer’s camera remains sharply trained on the calculated and reactionary manoeuvres that
are orchestrated in front of us. The black-and-white photographs – emphasising the timeless
nature of such a sport and pastime – introduce us to artists, boxers, and wrestlers that not only
hold our attention in a chokehold, but also honour a legacy of martial arts that has dotted the
Bangladeshi landscape for decades. It is a landscape that continues to nurture traditional
practices like ‘lathi-khela,’ ‘boli-khela,’ and ‘bhuttan,’ along with modern day boxing and
wrestling. Gore and glory go hand-in-hand; this is a world where mediated aggression becomes
a source of livelihood, of upliftment, of safety, of pleasure. Zobayer’s images leave us with an
intimacy of a life that exists beyond a scoreboard. It is what makes his practice dramatically
inspiring, for these are images that provide us with a courtside view of the lives of the fighters,
and not just the game. No longer impassive and anonymous, and surrounded by chants and
cheers (and boos and hisses equally), we see the godly deliverance of not a fighter, but the
fighter. It is the very story of a resilient nation fighting for its place; a story Zobayer narrates with
profound conviction.
Let’s get ready to rumble
Shankar Tripathi, 2023.

The Exhibition will move to Art Incept, Gurugram and will be on display until 25th November 2023.

The Love Songs of Errantry : Brojeshwar Mondal and Parul Sharma
2023-10-01 11:00 - 2023-10-09 19:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Bikaner House, Pandara Road, India Gate, New Delhi, India
Curated by Prima Kurien

“To paint- as some do, even today, taking from colour which, once applied to the canvas transcends meaning and dissipates our memories- is, one might say nothing but itself: one imagines that here the immediate exists, here the veil has been torn open.”
(Yves Bonnefoy, “On Painting and Poetry, on Anxiety and Peace”, The Love and Lure of Painting)

The representation of the exterior world is one of the oldest obsessions of humankind, rivalling hunger, thirst, and procreation, as it is the closest ally to the “self” that seeks its identity in an individual, in relation to nature and culture. It is evident that one cannot be exposed to the “self” without exertion. Hence, one must draw a line to tear through the veil… to break free (from the mirror that imprisons and limits the understanding of the world and hence of ourselves)- to trace life with an astute eye of an errant- dissecting time, devouring appearances, and etching the partially-realised and the momentary into visual memory.
Contemporary artists Brojeshwar Mondal and Parul Sharma break free from visual apathy through their explorations of errantry. Mondal commits to it by venturing outside of human settlements- into the wilderness of the lush mountainous landscapes of Siliguri (West Bengal) and patches of verdure in the bustling city of Kolkata (West Bengal). He becomes a soothsayer for his culture(s)- who must dive and divine the often unseen and unperceived moments of nature. Sharma on the other hand, explores her errantry by scaling the architecture of the city, to leave behind the pervasive human presence that threatens to engulf her- her ascension into errantry as inevitable as the dystopian future of the city that she leaves behind.
The distinct trajectories these artists choose are not the results of detachment from dominant narratives on art or a state of rootlessness but of awareness and acceptance of their relative position as errant within the changing natural and social landscapes of the spaces they inhabit.

BROJESWAR MONDAL
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
(T.S Eliot, “Burnt Norton”, Four Quartets)

Brojeswar Mondal (b. 1994, Siliguri, West Bengal) delves into remnants and remainders of nature that the uninitiated mind sees but chooses not to absorb or delve into. Traces of nature are committed to paper, in watercolour, acrylic, aerosol spray, ink and pigment, often found floating in a vast, white space. The artist invites us into his carefully curated memories of the fleeting and often disregarded phenomena of nature – the silhouettes of mountains and trees exposed by a sudden burst of light in a nocturnal sky, the transient colours and reflections of a fast-flowing river, the constantly shifting sand banks of rainfed rivers, the moisture collecting on a blade of grass at risk of disappearing into the wet ground below- all find expression in his world(s).
Such compositions invite the eye to step into them, shake off the dust of the mundane and take a stroll through the artist’s visual memories… to give in to the temptation of skipping from one abstract form to another, of gently tip-toeing on filigreed lines and dewy drops, to wade into flowing fields of colour, stop occasionally to dip into vaguely familiar references, and attempt at holding on to the fringes of meaning he scatters across the composition, only to find that they slip out of our mind’s grasp like grains of sand, once we emerge out of his world(s). The instinct to chase after patterns and meaning has the eye wander further into his world(s)-the perfect lure to hold us enraptured, a bit longer… and to commit to his errantry-a search for purity in nature.
By refusing to provide any preemptable strategy or path into his compositions, the artist seeks to intervene in the meaning-making process. He plays with our inherent need for meaning-making that ends, despite all our efforts, with us giving in to his gambit. Upon relinquishing power, he takes us gently through the rabbit hole, across lush, green paddy fields, into unusual streams and rivers, over flickering mountainous horizons, beside remnants of trees and near dewy blades of grass…to a state of being where only our eye exists- a place where everyone travels to but doesn’t quite arrive at.
Can meaning be nailed down fully and completely, when it loses its solid anchor- context? In Mondal’s work where only time exists, it spreads itself out, daring us to examine the abstract title, limitless white space, decontextualised forms, lines, and vibrant colours closely. There is no immediacy in his work, only the desire for the immediate. In a culture where we are constantly bombarded with visual images and patterns, Mondal through his explorations of nature, provides us an absolution from our habit of lazy looking by focusing on the immediate- that which runs the risk of changing.
Mondal’s compositions are slippery paths into his world(s). He tears open the torments of our time… that in looking for meaning and in the search for patterns or pre-existing imageries, we risk losing the unity-the moment in its entirety, the only place in which to truly live; that in sketching, drawing, painting, as in breathing, thinking and creating, we bring into existence, a power misperceived, or partial in understanding- that a landscape is never complete, that an untrained eye absorbs only but one perspective, whereas multiple exist simultaneously in a given moment …and that we all limp perilously on the crutches of an incomplete understanding of the world(s) we inhabit and exploit.

PARUL SHARMA
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
(T.S Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)

A perennial wanderer in cosmopolitan Delhi- a city brimming with and blaring of human presence, Parul Sharma could have filled her compositions with cramped city views and loud human presence. Instead, she captures the city- with its partially completed buildings, its sparse verdure, its smoggy skyline, and evidence of social and economic disparities of her time- from the quiet windows and the immuring walls of her home and studio. The only human presence in these intimate settings is the artist herself- pinned down and wriggling on the floor.
In Sharma’s current body of work, the eye saunters into the compositions with no sense of urgency. It casually traces the contours of floating forms, intercepts and dodges the sharp lines that cleave the space into walls, a floor, a roof, doors, and windows, to approach and then poke at the light and dark shadows of the lattice window to turn and find-to its surprise, a struggling life pinned to the floor. The erratic beating of its heart is the only sound in the space. The pinned wings, upon realising the presence of an examiner, renew its efforts to free themselves.
The artist offers no gentle path to break out of her compositions. To escape the sound and sight of the pinned and struggling life, one must clamber frantically up the sharp-edged crevices and corners and slip, try and wiggle out of the shadows of the lattice windows and get stuck, slip off the curtains to understand that it is only by scaling up the walls and clutching at the strands of breeze or on an errant cloud that one leaves behind the thwarted human spirit, and the haze of the cosmopolitan city and its suppressive codes.
For Sharma, architecture is a measure of the fragmented and conflicting worldview it frames. It encloses within it, the artist’s memories, fears, insecurities, and ever-increasing resentment towards moral and social codes of her time. The architectural features of her confinement provide Sharma, with an imagination that-though partial and limited, tempts her to scale up the city -of which she is a resenting resident, to seek out the wilderness.
In Sharma’s compositions, the angst-ridden creative mind caged within the social codes of a cosmopolitan city that is hurtling headlong into a dystopian future, taps incessantly at the windowpanes, pecks away at the lattices of light and dark, beats her wings against the walls, and scales up the walled and congested humanscape of Delhi. The golden bird with its wings of gold, from the prodigious Rabindranath Tagore’s poem, Dui Pankhi (Two Birds) breaks free of its confinement. In these attempts, Sharma is an errant who captures songs of freedom within her windows and embraces every hope of verdure that gnaws away at her confinement.
Sharma belongs to a cosmopolitan imagination that moves beyond buildings, cities, and continents. Home and belonging are equated with confinement, displacement, and anxiety in her work. Through errantry, Sharma frees herself from the constraints of belonging- finding her “self”, away from the confines of her home and her city. Her work in this context, offers a critique of the notions of home and belonging, both often equated with stasis, stability, and security.
In the bustling capital of the nation-state, Sharma brings forth the loneliness of the cosmopolitan life where malcontent, fatigue, excess and social inequalities malinger and corrode the human spirit. The overwhelming question then, as the poet T.S Eliot poses in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is whether we dare to amble further into Sharma’s compositions, to break through the veils of concrete, bricks, steel, and glass, to scale up the pervasive humanscape around us, to discover epiphanies of our own, or do we choose to turn back to retreat to our confines!

– Shruthi Issac
Shruthi Issac spearheads the museum initiatives as Director- Collection Museum Initiatives and Curator – The Roohi & Rajiv Savara Family Collection at the New Delhi-based The Savara Foundation for the Arts. She completed her Masters in Museum Studies from The Johns Hopkins University – USA and her M. Phil and Masters degrees in French and Francophone Studies from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Where do I belong…home. heart. history.
2023-08-02 18:00 - 2023-08-10 20:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
Solo show by Savitha Ravi, curated by Rahul Kumar.

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The literal sense of the word place has been interpreted in many different ways. It is multidimensional, often complex construct that is used to characterize the relationship between people and spatial settings. It also denotes unique characteristics that some geographic locations have and some do not. Expanding this to the realms of psychology and imagination, it is a feeling or perception held by people, interestingly, not by the place itself.

What makes space a place?

One of the oldest tenets of science and geography, place is defined as “a space with meaning”. An area having unique qualities with interconnected associations. Further, a sense of place is the emotion someone attaches to an area based on their experiences. Place can be applied at any scale and does not necessarily have to be fixed in either time or space.

Savitha Ravi grappled with the question of where she belongs. Having migrated from her birth-city and eventually settling in a whole new place, she often wondered where she came from. What are the cultural attributes, art and design aesthetics of that place? And, what does it even mean to belong to a geographical location? She discovered her family native place. The ancestral home now ceases to exist and there is nothing that remains to call her own. Her physical possessions are now all in a city that has no historical connections to her family. As such she finds herself dealing with a deep sense of rootlessness. She feels like a sort of a nomad who built her life ground up, severing all her family histories. For Savitha, this obsession to find a home for herself lead to her art practice. She feels most at home while creating. The very process allows her the search for space, having reasons to belong, and establishing attachments. For her, the sense of belonging first comes with a place, then its people, their culture, and eventually the habits we form. It is but poetic circle of life – with no worldly possessions, one gets on the path of discovery and accumulation, and then restart with nothing again. And in that context, one is constantly trying to find the place where one belongs with respect to the place where we once belonged.

Finding forms in the in-between
The desire to find her one’s place is a powerful force that drives Savitha to explore and create. Her print making process is a unique one, where she uses discarded tetra pack to make ‘plates’. The imagery often has references of her home town, the house of her grandfather. She finds herself in a dreamworld, suspended in a desire that cannot quite take precise shape or form. This sense of being caught ‘between worlds’ inspired her to create large-scale scrolls on cloth. She used each and every plate she has ever made to print a myriad of images. The prints contain various patterns and forms, each one representing a moment in her journey towards self-discovery, or maybe writing an autobiography, one page at a time. Are the works a reflection of liminal spaces, yearning to take form?

There are several metaphorical engagements in the current body of work by Savitha. By the canal invites viewers to experience the fleeting moments through her eyes and a reminder of the transience nature of life, just like the flowing water. Reflections of houses are mere illusions, almost melting away in the ripples of canal water. Feeling of nostalgia and unattainability are at play. Hiraeth by the Canal explores the longing for a home that never existed. Is ‘home’ a place for solace or escape?

Savitha skillfully presents morphed impressions, often juxtaposing the urban reality she is living with imagined views of her village. Morphing realities is about the change in the view outside the window of her studio, albeit seen through the lens of an imagined world. Yet another work uses traditional games from her childhood. Layered with architectural associations, the repetitive patterns refer to the act of playing the games requiring taking turns and repetition to win. The act of everyday commute also became a source of archive for Savitha. The city is in a constant state of metamorphosis. Over the years, sometimes within days, new things appear and what existed recedes into nothingness. The familiar things that gave her a sense of reassurance no longer exists. And what gets created in her works now is dipping into her vivid memory that allows for the emotion to come through more than the actual object as it was. On the way then is neither a documentation, nor a dream. It is neither imagined, nor real. Much like her overall practice, Savitha takes us on a tour to her family’s heritage, making us view her world through the lens of nostalgia, and constantly interrupting us with her contemporary realities.

Rahul Kumar
July 2023

The Wound Is The Place Where Light Enters...
2023-08-02 18:00 - 2023-08-10 20:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Triveni Kala Sangam
Solo Show by Ariba Akhlaque | Curated by Prima Kurien | In partnership with Triveni Kala Sangam

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The wound is the place, where light enters…
“I said: What about my heart?
He said: Tell me what you hold inside it?
I said: Pain and sorrow.
He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
-Rumi
In between remembrance and loss, a consciousness exists shaped by cultural background, personal
experience & social influence – Ariba’s work stems from here.
This body of work celebrates memories of the bygone as well as imagined archives created by
personal objects – a dried rose, an old postcard, or a broken tile -that simultaneously trace, grief, loss,
and celebration- the language of nostalgia.
Ariba Akhlaque (1994), is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Karachi, Pakistan. She graduated from
the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, majoring in printmaking and new media art.
She has exhibited widely- at Haam Gallery in Lahore, Chronos exhibition- in Brazil, Art Incept grant
exhibition- in New Delhi, amongst others.

Unseen City
2023-03-28 11:30 - 2023-05-02 18:00 UTC | Stir Gallery, 2 North Drive, DLF Chattarpur Farms, India
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Outsider-Insider
Santanu Dey refers to himself as a triple migrant. From Calcutta to Baroda and then to Delhi, he is familiar with three cities. This has not caused him misery, but joyful discovery. His life, as his art reveals, was enriched, not restricted, with each transition. He grew up in Calcutta, studied art in Baroda and eventually, began working and living in Delhi. As he ‘breathed in’ each new location, he began to metabolize it in his mind, peel it off, slough it off its stereotypes and condense it into a place uniquely his own. Such realisations have driven him to become a spectator from the edges as an outsider-insider, always watching and commenting. His latest piece of art is more rebuke than ode to the metropolis.
Santanu adeptly anchors himself as the urban sutradhar, the narrator. To do this, he weaves his migrant-self with the use of scrolls. For the first, his ploy is using soft, white dhoti lengths. Dhotis are not as common as in cities as they once were. People wear them mostly for formal occasions. Who else can relate to a dhoti then, but a migrant who is reminded of someplace else?
Similarly, his nonsensical scrolls convey an urban buzz, evidence of being alive but not yet pounded into the melting pot. Santanu then assigns the role of cradling a scroll to these dhotis-the sort used by ancient story tellers. The dhoti scrolls in this series can therefore also be valued as self-portraits of him at work.
Botanical and industrial residues converse with him eloquently throughout. Santanu deploys carbon black from printing and photocopying machines in various works, combining it with fine line drawing. He forages for this material from neigbourhoods far from his home, asking facilities to keep them safely for him to collect. What seems to be a charcoal pencil in the hands of an artist are often particles of pollution, contained as a second life inside his work. In one of these, a beautiful river is interrupted by man-made effluents in an ink, foil and carbon shimmery sludgy. An emissions cloud erupts over the countryside. For Santanu, such materials are more than just an artist’s tool. They are a means to peel off and examine the ironic history of most major metropolises. In work after work, his use of discards memorialize the origin of cities as polluting industrial stretches, vital for production and economic growth. Chucks of these were eventually cannibalised and cleaned up for the newly emerging urbanites to flourish in. Gentrification drove industry to the edges since it was now seen as an urban contamination. Yet, as Santanu’s work so eloquently brings to the fore, effluence can be hidden, but it isn’t easy to abolish. The planet’s resources continue to be strained, for people shall consume.
Through visual cues, Santanu repeatedly emphasizes the idea of urban dystopia. Colour is his biggest tool- he barely uses any, stripping the landscape of an important attribute. He incorporates the materiality of the city into several pieces–by using archival printing ink and industrial paint, for example. His application of such atypical artistic materials is recognition of them as building blocks of any metropolis. By repeatedly using these in multiple ways, he imagines primacy for manufacturing again, a punchy re-think of drudgery and toil.
Santanu’s use of materials encodes urban faultlines. A small paper work employs ‘titch buttons’ strewn in a cluster at the bottom. These buttons are the mechanisms that connect two pieces of fabric, allowing them to form a whole. Yet, they are “synthetic,” as he refers to them, similar to lab diamonds. In other works, horizontal sheaths of gold foil scornfully symbolizes not desirable riches but in-your-face extravagance. As he sees it, such luxurious luminosity is a mirage. It conceals the city’s daily filth and sweat, it’s disorder and discordance, the messiness that lights its fire every day. It tramples the vegetal forms that spring to life, leaving behind their woody presence when their purpose is over. Through his work, Santanu recovers space and legitimacy for multiple histories. This is the essence of his work: devotedly constructing other ecospheres.
– Bharati Chaturvedi

Inception Grant Finalist Show 2023
2023-03-28 11:30 - 2023-05-02 18:00 UTC | Stir Gallery, 2 North Drive, DLF Chattarpur Farms, India
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The Inception Grant was set up to recognize and support young emerging talent in visual arts.
The Grant is open to contemporary artists between the ages of 21-35 years from South Asia with one category of the grant focused on India. The grant has been designed to be more than just financial aid to artists – awardees have access to our mentors and curators who assist them to develop their practice further through the year.
We have received more than 250 applications from all over India and this year we are honored to have the support of British-born visual artist, Tacita Charlotte Dean CBE, RA. Tacita is reviewing the shortlisted finalists to select the artist to get the Tacita Dean Inception Award 2023. The award comes with a cash grant, a mentorship program by Art Incept, and a solo show in 2023!
Our internal jury will select a shortlist that will be presented at the Grant show in March 2022. Our jurors are Roobina Karode, Manisha Parekh and Ranbir Kaleka.

Deconstructed Landscapes
2022-12-10 11:00 - 2022-12-11 22:00 UTC | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨… ⁣
⁣
Deconstructed Landscapes is a collaboration between four galleries, Anant Art, Art Incept, Exhibit320, and Latitude 28, as a part of Triveni’s “Gallery Nights” weekend where galleries remain open till 10:00 pm. ⁣
A landscape is a relationship between the surrounding environment and the spectator. In essence, it is a scene, a synthesis of forms, a reflection of the sociopolitical landscape, and a dialogue that the observer establishes. It can also be an internal excavation of memories and experiences in one’s life. Thus landscapes cannot be defined or contained within strict parameters. Through the exploration of the artist’s imagination, this exhibition brings together works that encourage the viewer to think beyond the implied etymological meaning of the word. Through their different perspectives, the artists create an array of scapes that reflect their internal and external understandings of their surroundings and the time in which they live.
⁣

Spaced Out
2022-11-12 - 2022-12-20 | Stir Gallery, 2 North Drive, DLF Chattarpur Farms, India
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contemporary artists exploring space as a metaphor
Architecture is a practice of space making. It is simply creating inhabitable enclosures, and yet it is layered with multitudes of contexts. Layout and form, material and textures, relation to the location of the build structure, and the very purpose it serves, all contribute to the understanding and perceptions of space. Architecturally, there are elements of science and maths, symbolism, and collective cultures, that influence the articulation of a constructed ecosystem. But extending the‘spatial’ conversation beyond the strict confines of the discipline, it opens up a whole new world of imagination.
Spaced out conceptually explores the idea of space and associated emotions in distinct ways. Multidisciplinary artists respond to and investigate concepts, express ideas, and depict notions of how and when the association of architectural space becomes a metaphor and when does it take thereal form. Practitioners using a wide variety of media and processes present a cohesive, yet multifaceted works of art.
Space awareness begins earlier than we think. It often grows out of mythic memory, rituals, and sometimes merely with thought. I find myself fortunate to work with investigators who are engaged with these interests. They provoke concepts of space-meaning through depicting its ideas in theirrespective creations. It is also my hope that the cross-sectioning of the choice of artists and art works will speak for itself, and become the basis for further enquiry. The works transmit values of social, psychological, and spiritual, which are virtually endless.
What do we lose when we strip space of these meanings?
Abhishek Dodiya uniquely layers his idiom by the use of scrap metal. He is rooted to both, the shipbreaking yard at his home town in Bhavnagar and the family profession of fabricating welded iron furniture. This portrayal of dismantling and reconstruction carry forward the history of the material. Metal sheet that made an erstwhile ship, now makes a house, both as a metaphor and through the act of the artist’s hands. Debasish Mukherjee in contrast investigates the built environment, strongly layered with socio-cultural fabric of the city of Banaras. He is engaged with the ideas of preserving memory through object making. He is himself intrigued with the starkness of the dualities that the ancient city beholds, that of age-old history and the now, of life that is constantly juxtaposed with death. His works puts in focus singular architectural elements that carry his personal nostalgia.
The play of light, its simplicity and drama are captured in the graphite renditions of Dilip Chobisa. He explores the mystery to reveal the hidden forms, distinguishing it from what is revealed. He consciously disregards the laws of architecture, yet creates an order of intrigue and curiosity. His drawings are defined by light or the lack of it, suggesting dark silences and pronounced emptiness, challenging the limits of perception and makes visible the possibility of space beyond the definition. On the other hand, M. Pravat has been exploring expressions of a city under construction. His interest in this subject comes particularly from the discord between the city as it appears in masterplans, in popular desires, and in contrast of the actual physical experience of it. He expressesthis dissonance we experience in our everyday lives with brutal intensity, sometimes from the intimacy of a home or at an urban scale of the city itself. Textures and material processes are significant in the art of the Pravat. Through the systematic process of undoing and destruction, heasks how could these forces be measured?
Martand Khosla explores urban continuity and transformation, as both complement and counter to his experience building in contemporary India. He initially pursued art to explore how construction- fuelled employment, shapes identities and nostalgia. Situated as both participant and observer, he employed tools of the State, such as the ubiquitous rubber stamp, to render its imprint on lives within traditional definitions of power and dispossession. His works traverse the lines between sculpture and object, movement and remnant, material and memory. Inspired by his studies of repetition and the human churning of industrialization, he replicates the micro-processes of macro- construction. And simultaneously, he moves from the lens of authoritarian power to its dispersion, exploring the transformations that lay in between. Likewise, Neelesh Yogi uses delicately formed paper sculptures. The objects created in his works are mostly man-made, but often juxtapose the traditional with contemporary. The current series references the architecture of Bengal. Neelesh has explored the traditional buildings in the city, in particular the home of Rabindranath Tagore. His works create a nostalgia by weaving architectural elements from the heritage sites of the city. The saturated blue tones achieved through cyanotype printing evokes a sense of darkness opening doors for interpretation of a silhouette or as a metaphor for degeneration of our cultural legacy.
Neyeti Chada’s works are recordings of the basic formalism in the urban environment. Her practice extends to various mediums and formats, from printmaking, sculpture, and photography to site- specific installations. The recent set of works is a series of collages featuring Balsa wood and Isograph pen on Paper, looking into the metabolic character of a city. Like a breathing organism, a city that is endlessly morphing and evolving. The works incorporate original photographs layered with drawings and materials such as balsa wood, ink, and Gouache. For Pratap Moray art is a means to document and contemplate the changing infrastructure and landscape of the city. He uses a range of mediums including archival ink, engravings, and digital photography to create his artworks. His preoccupation with Mumbai’s architecture began during his childhood when his family relocated tothe city. From congested lanes and tilted old buildings to the gentrification and displacement experienced by the city’s dwellers, the subjects of his works are mostly inspired by his own experiences with the unique urban make-up of the city.
Must space be an enclosed, three dimensional one? Could a unidimensional wall denote space?
Can space even be metaphysical? Can it be boundary less?Do the elements contained within an architectural creation evoke associations of it?
How would one react to the play of light within a given physical construct of space?
Does perspective play a role to view image of a room as multidimensional?
Can memories of a lived experience create déjà vu and perception of the very space while being physically absent from it? Does scale hold significance in the context – astronomical, earthly landscapes, a building, or anthill?
…let us find out through the presentations at ‘spaced out…’
– Rahul Kumar

Songs From My Homeland…a memoir of life and rituals
2022-09-02 - 2022-09-09 | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
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A solo show of Viswanath Kuttum, curated by Rahul Kumar.
Viswanath Kuttum tells stories without ending them. His paintings places imagery in unique context that is at once familiar and strange. He was born and grew up in the Andamans at a time when the island state was still pristine and untouched by changes in the name of development. While cellular technology had entered the lives of the locals, it had not taken over it. The everyday life, celebrations during festivals and weddings, rituals for death and birth, they all became his key references. He reminiscences them with nostalgia in his art.
Kuttum began to work at a local auto-repair shop at a young age. He needed to financially support his family, but he enjoyed the process of applying paint on repaired vehicles. He was also a keen participant in decorations at all the local festivities at his village. These activities proved to be the initial training ground for him for the arts. He candidly confesses having little interest in studies. This, combined with a deep passion for drawing and painting made his choice easier for a career as an artist. Kuttum migrated to mainland India for higher studies against all odds. Settling down in the city was daunting and exciting at the same time. It was only natural for the fast-paced life and the urban environment to have a deep impact on the impressionable mind. His early work began to respond to this new life around him, but deep within he yearned for the memories from his childhood. It was also his need to do something different. He found many of his contemporaries using the same point of reference in the art they produced. Politics and social structures of contemporary urban life played a significant role in his works then. However, he questioned what was truly his own, unique only to him. And this desire for ‘immediacy’ of inspiration took him back to his homeland.
His paintings are monochromatic with a pale, yet restful background, evoking a sense of warmth of the pleasant weather of his village. The minimalist and uncluttered works also refer to the unpolluted air he was used to. He began to create images of his homeland with enthusiasm to convey of its simplicity. The lifestyle may seem ‘backward’ but on closer inspection its magical qualities will reveal. The various rituals performed in his village are an ode to nature. One of the significant annual events involves a large-scale celebration with participation of friends and family alike. On the terrace of the house a clay pot with a rock is placed, filled with rice-grains and turmeric. The pot is closed with a red cloth and covered with a basket. This ensemble remains untouched for the entire year, after which all the old objects are put in the local lake and a new one is set up for the year to follow. This is accompanied with a customary dance performance by the men-folk of the house. Animal slaughter is an integral part of the culture. If the wishes come true, a goat is offered to the gods.
In his recent works, Kuttum interprets the silent moments between the ‘characters’ in his frame. The unspoken words between the performer and the animal, right before the act of slaughter; the unsaid emotions of the priest as he offers the hibiscus flower before performing the prayers; and even the imagined dialogue between man and plants before harvesting. He is interested in the in-betweenness and the transitional, one that is neither in the present nor in an imagined space. There are metaphors at play when he makes broken objects, like a tattered basket. Commonly used and an integral part of life in his village, the damaged basket symbolises the imperfection of life itself. Kuttum’s occasional painting involves a busy cluster of juxtaposed elements, quite contrary to the usual singular bold element. He has also experimented with an uneven silhouette of the canvas itself. These have a direct motivation from his own state of mind. A restless and emotionally heightened psyche has a direct impact on the format of his image making.
Songs from my homeland…a memoir of life and rituals is a celebration for Kuttum. He takes us to his village, on a guided tour, and makes us privy to his lived and imagined emotions. There are moments that are tranquil yet sombre, there are sentiments of contemplation.
Rahul Kumar

Memory Keepers
2022-08-24 - 2022-09-20 | Stir Gallery, 2 North Drive, DLF Chattarpur Farms, India
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A geometric abstraction by 6 emerging women artists.
Nostalgia is a feeling that is built by memories – it reminisces on moments that passed a long time ago. Nostalgia often is sweet going back to memories and experiences of simple times, most often related to our childhood. However, nostalgia can also be a little sad when people or spaces that are related to those memories no longer exist.Memories shape us. Many define our future. Yet today creates our memories for tomorrow!
Memory Keepers brings together six early career women artists who explore this idea through their contemporary art practices. The memories and experiences that shaped them are distinctively their own. What is distinct about this show is that each artist uniquely employs material and process – from stitching metal sheets, to cyanotype printing with embroidery, fresco treatment on MDF and using old tetra packs as printing plates.

World With-in…World With-out
2022-07-31 - 2022-08-06 | Bikaner House, Pandara Road, India Gate, New Delhi, India
17 contemporary artists respond to the idea of home and the world.
Co-curated by Prima Kurien & Rahul Kumar
The ultimate reality of the universe, which is ever-expanding and is still being discovered, is understood through its material and formal existence. Man, by nature, is ever interested in the study of matter, its properties, possible reactions to imposed processes, and eventually uses this knowledge to exploit the ‘resources’ for its own benefits. Our planet (and beyond) was formed by chance and not by design. Of course, this is true for those who believe in the big bang theory, by far the most credible scientific explanation of how the universe was created. And ever since its inception, till this fleeting moment, the physicality of the cosmos is changing. Innumerable forces are at play that impact these ‘outwardly’ shifts and mutations.
Soul, however, defines the essence of all matter. It is normally associated with the living energy but metaphorically could very well extend to the non-living too. This energy, unlike the physical manifestation, is believed to be eternal and immortal. Our thoughts, emotions, and psychological reactions to stimuli, all form our ‘inwardly’ being. This intangible energy is stored in the form of thoughts, both lived and imagined. And unlike the physical being, this energy can move in multiple dimensions. Scientific study is yet to discover even a fraction of how this aspect of our exitance operates.
Yet, both worlds are eternally interdependent. And at a macro level of understanding, the individual soul of all matter is made of the same reality, the cosmic energy, forming the singular ‘whole’. There is an entire world that exists ‘within’, and this is highly vulnerable to external forces. Every act of distress that is witnessed in the outside world leads to a fractured and wounded inside world. The corollary is equally true – what transpires within the intimacy of the inside world leads to all our actions and manifestations in the outside.Are these to be experienced differently then? Or, is there seamlessness? How does one transition from the ‘out’ to the ‘in’? or is there even a distinction?
This exhibit intends to explore these ideas through contemporary art practices of early-career artists. Each practitioner in the group uniquely employs material and process. The formal concerns and motivations are uniquely their own, delinked from any hegemonic reference of its previous generation or schools of thought. While they are all rooted, the practices are liberated from the patronage of scholarship and highbrow western culture. The exhibition includes works created during the self-imposed isolation (owing to the COVID19 pandemic), adding a distinct layer to their interpretations.
Multi-disciplinary in nature and experiential in format, there will be two distinct areas, each focussing on the ‘aatmmann’ (the inward) and ‘brahmmann’ (the outward) respectively.

Abhishek Dodiya

Abin Sreedharan

Brojeswer Mondal

Chandan Bez Baruah

Ciby Samuel

Cyrus

Kumar Misal

Moumita Basak

Nishchay Thakur

Pankaj Chouhan

Parul Sharma

Rachita Dutta

Rinku Choudhary

Viswanath Kuttum

Santanu Dey

Savitha Ravi

Shubham Kumar

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India Art Fair
2022-04-28 11:00 - 2022-05-01 18:00 UTC | NSIC Exhibition Complex, Okhla Phase III, Okhla Industrial Estate, New Delhi, India
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Art Incept was at the India Art Fair 2022 and showcased the works of 8 extremely talented and sensitive emerging artists. The exhibition booth was designed by Prima Kurien and curated by Prima and Rahul.
During the Art Fair, Art Incept launched our limited edition portfolios in partnership with our artists. These portfolios were designed for young collectors and was available at an extremely attractive price hoping more young enthusiasts start their journey as collectors!
Abhishek Dodiya, Brojesjwer Mondal, Cyrus, Kumar Misal, Parul Sharma, Santanu Dey, Viswanath Kuttum and Zarrin-Fatima Shamsi.

Inception Grant Finalist Show 2022
2022-03-28 11:30 - 2022-05-02 18:00 UTC | Stir Gallery, 2 North Drive, DLF Chattarpur Farms, India
The Inception Grant was set up to recognize and support young emerging talent in visual arts.
The Grant is open to contemporary artists between the ages of 21-35 years from South Asia with one category of the grant focused on India. The grant has been designed to be more than just financial aid to artists – awardees have access to our mentors and curators who assist them to develop their practice further through the year.
We have received more than 250 applications from all over India and this year we are honoured to have the support of British-born visual artist, Tacita Charlotte Dean CBE, RA. Tacita is reviewing the shortlisted finalists to select the artist to get the Tacita Dean Inception Award 2022. The award comes with a cash grant, a mentorship program by Art Incept, and a solo show in 2023!
Our internal jury will select a shortlist that will be presented at the Grant show in March 2022. Our jurors are Roobina Karode, Manisha Parekh and Ranbir Kaleka.

...of meditative gestures
2021-10-29 - 2021-11-30 | Haryana
An online exhibition
by SHAHANSHAH MITTAL
“My recent body of work is an ongoing exploration of the works and lives of saints. I am particularly interested in the writing of Swami Vivekanand, couplets of Kabir, and poems of Bulleshah. Unintentionally, all of this becomes a part of my work. Text and references to script in my work emerge from what I read and listen to. The intent is not to make it legible, but an uninterrupted flow of my emotion and environment. And other recognizable motifs, like a flower, remind me of nature, as though saying “I am ready to blossom.” Each work in this series is a visual diary of my exploration. My ideas evolve as I apply my sense of order and play to the image and material at hand. I may start with an idea in mind, but somewhere as I go along, intention and chance take over, giving it a new direction. I am never quite sure how a painting will look until it is finished.”
– Shahanshah Mittal
Memory of my Kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″
When I look back at my past, the years that I spent alone in Delhi, there was nothing on my mind then, except to paint. My teacher and professional guide suggested that I spend time working with the medium to discover the secrets and hidden meaning of the painting. In the process, I realized that my daily chores, my mundane surroundings, began to reflect in my art. The texture of concrete walls, random patterns on the road outside my house, and even the rhythm of the music I would put on in my studio… I painted it all. I do not paint with a preconceived plan or thought. This method is liberating and I thoroughly enjoy the freedom and allow things to flow in a natural way.
Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 40 x 72″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 40 x 72″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on canvas | 40 x 72″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 40 x 72″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″
Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 30 x 42″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 30 x 42″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 30 x 42″
Music, nature, and spirituality draw my attention. I recreate a microcosm world that is layered with my vision, and the core reason for my art to be abstract. I intend to communicate a feeling rather than a precise meaning. My work attempts to create an environment that I find within myself; they represent an internal world that I am attempting to externalize and share. Most of my paintings are minimal in approach. I see them as balanced imagery, yet full of rhythm and asymmetry. Maestro and music exponent Hariprashad Chaurasia said “… my instrument is simply a piece of bamboo. The sound is straight from nature and it connects me to nature.” Similarly, I like to work on paper, a medium with which I feel completely liberated. I want to understand the music of nature more deeply with the help of my art.
Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″ Memory of my kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″
Memory of my Kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″
Memory of my Kolkata | Dry pigment on mount board | 36 x 56″

and...there was light
2021-09-27 - 2021-10-30 | Stir Gallery, 2 North Drive, DLF Chattarpur Farms, India
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‘and…there was light’
But there, ahead, a beam of lightPeered through the darkness of the nightAnd granted to me clearer sightThat I might be set free.– Robert S Bise
We understand the importance of light when we are in darkness. What does darkness mean to us? Metaphorically, it can exist in multiple forms…a closed mind and an unkind heart, or in the evil actions we take and hurtful words we speak. It need not be simply the absence of light. A tiny virus can push the world into darkness. Our senseless consumption and the absence of care for the planet is nothing but an accelerated race into darkness.
But without light can darkness even be experienced? Light is needed to cast a shadow and it in this contrast that the we ‘see’ both light(ness) and dark(ness). Besides, we owe all life to that beam of light. It is our singular source of energy that is essential to produce food and nourish our souls. It is that silver lining of hope. It is the reason we look forward to a new day. It is the reason that causes the night to turn into day!
What is light to you? Where do you find the source of light? Where would you want it to lead you? Do you believe there is light that shines within? Is light a tool for your work, a subject, or an inspiration? Or is it a metaphor for hope.
‘and…there was light’ celebrates light in all its possible interpretations. A tightly curated exhibition will include early-career practitioners from the finalists of the first edition of the Inception Grant. Artists across disciplines and genres are invited to respond to this idea in their own unique style.

Breath of Art
2021-06-30 08:00 UTC | Triveni Kala Sangam
“Art is something that makes you breathe with a different kind of happiness!”
– Annie Ambers

The human race has been at a war. This time with a virus that has challenged the way we live! And this time, one that has created a new normal for us. One that has altered the very fundamentals of our approach to coexist with nature. As we continue to come to terms and deal with an unprecedented emotional unrest, don’t we just crave for a bit of fresh breath of energy?
We cannot give you better air or a virus-proof existence, but we can uplift your spirits and help you ‘breathe’ with a “different kind of happiness”!

Breath of Art is a show that attempts to reenergize a space with art – art that inspires, works that are refreshing, and practices that have the ability to make you think! The show brings together seven emerging artists working in varied formats and with distinct thematic framework. They tied together with a common objective of invigorating your senses with fresh energy and unfamiliar perspectives.

RAM DONGREUntitledOil on Canvas70 x 45″
SANTANU DEYMelting Stomach, 2020Burnt wood and graphite42 x 48 x 3″

SANTANU DEYFolded Land, 2020Mixed Media on Acid-Free Paper12 x 24″

SANTANU DEYThe Moon Comes to my Balcony, 2020Burnt wood and graphite25 x 41 x 5″

RAM DONGREUntitledOil on Canvas67 x 48″

DEEPAK KUMARKingfisher, 2019Acrylic on Canvas60 x 50″

DEEPAK KUMARForgotten Homes, 2020Repurposed Wood46 x 73 x 3″

DEEPAK KUMARUntitled, 2020Acrylic on Repurposed wood and metal48″

VISWANATH KUTTUMLife and rituals, 2020Mixed Media on Board30 x 30″

VISWANATH KUTTUMNot Convoluted -I, 2017Paraffin and Bee wax, resin, Double Boiled Linseed Oil, Brown Powder on Paper Board15 x 15″

VISWANATH KUTTUMNot Convoluted – II, 2018Paraffin and Bee wax, resin, Double Boiled Linseed Oil, Brown Powder on Paper Board15 x 15″

VISWANATH KUTTUMLast Thirst, Taste and Juice, 2020Paraffin and Bee wax, resin, Double Boiled Linseed Oil, Brown Powder on Paper Board38 x 46″

VISWANATH KUTTUMMeditative Eye II, 2020Parafin and Bee wax, resin, Double Boiled Linseed Oil, Brown Powder on Paper Board44 x 92″

SHAHANSHAH MITTALI celebrate Myself, 2015Acrylic on Canvas60 x 30″

SHAHANSHAH MITTALLanguage of Existence, 2018Mixed Media on Canvas36 x 56″

SHAHANSHAH MITTALLanguage of Existence, 2020Dry Pastels on Paper Board15 x 14″

SHAHANSHAH MITTALLanguage of Existence, 2020Dry Pastels on Paper Board15 x 14″INR 25,000

SHAHANSHAH MITTALLanguage of Existence, 2020Dry Pastels on Paper Board15 x 14″

SHAHANSHAH MITTALLanguage of Existence, 2020Dry Pastels on Paper Board15 x 14″

SUNIL YADAVArchaeological Survey, 2020Mixed Media on Canvas48 x 72″

Boundaries Unbuilt 2
2021-04-03 - 2021-05-10 | Stir Gallery, 2 North Drive, DLF Chattarpur Farms, India
Abhishek Dodiya | City Scape 2021 | Mixed Media on Wood

Abhishek Dodiya | City Scape 2021 | Mixed Media on Wood

Abhishek Dodia | Urban scape | Metal Scraps

Ghanashyam Latua | Khoai Landscape X | Pen, Ink and Pin-Work on Paper

Harish Ojha | Neighborhood | Archival Paper on Board

Mudita Bhandari | Nesting | Terracotta, Paper pulp and cement

Nilmoni Chatterjee | Urbanscape | Solid Wood and Metal

Nilmoni Chatterjee | Where is my home-2 | Soilid Wood and Iron

Savitha Ravi | The Corridor | Intaglio Print

Savitha Ravi | The Ideal Home III | Intaglio Print

Shiv Lal Saroha | Acrylic and Charcoal on Canvas

Soma Surovi Jannat | A patch of deep blue sky has been broken through a thick cover of grey cloud | Pen on Handmade Paper

Soma Surovi Jannat | When time takes the last breath | Pen on Handmade Paper

Sunil_Yadav | An Archaeology of a New Identity | Mixed Media on Canvas

Sunil Yadav | Mixed Media on Canvas

Vanshika Rathi | Highways across Oceans | Handcut Archival Paper

Vijaya Chauhan | Innovative Eye 4 | Stoneware, Terracotta, Iron and Wood

Viswanath Kuttum | Life and rituals | Mixed Media on Board

Yash Pal | The Rusted Wall | Mix Media on Mount Board

Yash Pal | Mix Media on Mount Board

Still Life
2021-03-24 - 2021-03-31 | Haryana
The process of living is tinged with uncertainty, an uncertainty made
more palpable in daily events, encounters, and tragedies. Its basis is
the acceptance of universal frailties, the loss of all things. A house is
built; it corrodes in rain and sun, is beaten by seasonal changes.
Organic growth rises in its crevices. Every day it dies a little more.
Till walls cave in, brick turns to dust, and fresh life replaces
completely, till even the plants die and disappear into earth and soil
leaving but one reminder: Youth is but a minor itch, it passes; the
progression of ageing is unforgiving as ever. Still, evolutionary loss is
comforted by time’s elongated length. People feast before extinction,
find God in belief; they migrate in hope. Tradition and custom
intervene. Mosque, temple, and church are clothed in conforming
uniforms. Games are invented to enlarge purpose, create conflicts,
elongate life. Ageing, decline and demise are accorded personal time
frames, accelerated for some, stretched and seemingly limitless for
others. We live, we learn to love because we are dying. The
archeology of cities, the rise and decay of architecture, the dimming
focus of design and material objects, private transformations and
public cultures, the physical residue of all that manifests as life and
material, transforms from birth to love to struggle to dissolution, to
loss and memory, finally to recall and remembrance. Things die,
there’s grief. Things remain beautiful, even in sorrow.
-Gautam Bhatia

GAUTAM BHATIAAmbitionMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIABig BusinessMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIACall of NatureMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIACurse of Common PlaceMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIACycle of WealthMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIADeath of BirthMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAEnd of ReligionMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAFamily ReunionMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAFeasting ExtinctionMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAGoing NowhereMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAHouse of CardsMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAInnocence of LossMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIALabor of LoveMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAThe MakerMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAPainterMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAReviving FaithMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAThe Birds have FlownMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAThe Birth of DeathMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAThis Is LifeMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAUnwashed CityMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAWriterMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAPrayerBronze

GAUTAM BHATIASelfie Circa 1930Bronze

GAUTAM BHATIAselfie Circa 1950Bronze

GAUTAM BHATIAUnveiledBronze

GAUTAM BHATIAToothpaste of MigrantsBronze

GAUTAM BHATIAWomen of FaithBronze

GAUTAM BHATIAHung ParliamentBronze

GAUTAM BHATIAGame of ThronesMixed Media on Paper

GAUTAM BHATIAMercy KillingMixed media on paper

Inception Grant Finalist Show 2021
2021-03-08 | Stir Gallery, 2 North Drive, DLF Chattarpur Farms, India
Keerti Pooja | Etching Aquatint on Paper and Clot

Bebek Kalyan Roy | Spine Tree | Mix Media on Board

Anupama Alias | Surviving Phase 2 | Watercolor On Paper

Brojeswer Mondal | Pen and Ink on Paper

Brojeswer Mondal | Acrylic on Choksi Board

Chandar Panjre | Elements of Village | Kantha Fabric

Chandar Panjre | Dehati Brand | Kantha Fabric

Ghanashyam Latua | Khoai Landscape I | Pen, Ink and Pin-Work on Paper

Hasmukh Makwana | Soul Scan | Rice Paper and Ink on Canvas

Hiral Chaudhari | Mixed Media on Paper

Jyotiprakash Sethy | Soft Pastel on Mount Board

Neelesh Yogi | Thora hai Thore ki Zarurat Hai | Paper

Desolate
2021-02-19 - 2021-03-28 | Museo Camera, Shri Ganesh Mandir Marg, DLF Phase IV, Sector 28, Gurugram, Haryana, 122002, India
An exhibition that attempts to explore the extension of image-based practices through materiality and technique.
Curated by Rahul Kumar

The curatorial framework for this exhibition is two pronged: conceptual & emotional reference to the idea of desolate, and exploring the genre of image-based art.
With the advent of the COVD-19 pandemic, humanity has experienced isolation like never before. But what does solitary mean to us?
Does it imply a sense of freedom, or does it evoke loneliness?
Does it infer hierarchy, or is it about a feeling of being left-out?
Does it mean strength in standing tall, or does it encourage looking inward?
Selected early to mid-career artists from all across the country react to this impression in their own ways.
All the practices included in this show are also bound by the use of photography as an element in their works. There are photographers who present images on the idea and notion of desolate itself. And then there are artists who merely use image as a component in their work. The exhibition attempts to explore this extension of image-based practices through materiality (variety of surfaces to print images), as also the techniques used in the process of producing the works.

ANDHIKA RAMADIANAquaticDigital Print on paper20 x 16 ′′

ANDHIKA RAMADIANCuriosityDigital Print on paper20 x 16 ′′

ANDHIKA RAMADIANCycleDigital Print on paper20 x 20 ′′

ANDHIKA RAMADIANStuckDigital Print on paper20 x 20 ′′

JIGNESH PANCHALLanguage of the Wall set of 9 , 2020Mixed Media on Paper12 x 8 ′′

RANJEET SINGHThe Black Truth Project 14, 2018-2019Archival Print on Paper20 x 14 ′′

RANJEET SINGHThe Black Truth Project 2, 2018-2019Archival Print on Paper20 x 14 ′′

RANJEET SINGHThe Black Truth Projects 3, 2018-2019Archival Print on Paper20 x 14 ′′

SAMANTA BATRA MEHTAThe Last of the Uncolonized Lands #6, 2010C Print30 x 30 ′′

SANJAY DASCosmic RythmArchival Print on Paper50 x 40 ′′

SANJAY DASPrayer Flags 1Archival Print on Paper33 x 22 ′′

SANJAY DASSerenity 1Archival Print on Paper22 x 33 ′′

SANJAY DASSerenity 2Archival Print on Paper22 x 33 ′′

SANJAY DASUntitled 1Archival Print on Paper30 x 45 ′′

SAVITHA RAVIIdeal Home 1, 2019Intaglio Print31 x 22 ′′

SAVITHA RAVIIdeal Home II, 2019Intaglio Print31 x 22 ′′

SAVITHA RAVIReflection of Rain set of 6 , 2019Cyanotype on Woodcut Print13 x 9 ′′

SAVITHA RAVIRemembrance- Places, Objects and Feelings set of 4 , 2019Cyanotype on Intaglio Print13 x 19.5 ′′

SAVITHA RAVIThe Corridor, 2020Intaglio Print21.5 x 42 ′′

SAVITHA RAVIThe Ideal Home III, 2019Intaglio Print21.5 x 21.5 ′′
