Art Incept

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.

Where do I belong…home. heart. history.
2023-08-02 18:00 - 2023-08-10 20:00 | 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 Love Songs of Errantry : Brojeshwar Mondal and Parul Sharma
2023-10-01 11:00 - 2023-10-09 19:00 | 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.

We Live To Fight
2023-11-03 11:00 - 2023-11-06 19:00 | 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 Residue of Space and Body
2023-11-03 11:00 - 2023-11-06 19:00 | 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

WORLD WITHIN WORLD WITHOUT II - MUMBAI
2023-12-07 10:00 - 2023-12-10 19:00 | 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.

Memory Keepers II
2024-01-29 11:00 - 2024-02-15 18:30 | 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

India Art Fair 2024
2024-02-01 11:00 - 2024-02-04 19:00 | 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”

INCEPTION GRANT FINALISTS SHOW 2024
2024-03-03 11:00 - 2024-03-10 19:00 | 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.

TERRA
2024-04-05 11:00 - 2024-04-22 19:00 | 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

CROSSROADS
2024-07-08 11:30 - 2024-07-31 18:00 | 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.

Hiraeth
2024-08-23 11:00 - 2024-08-30 19:00 | 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

Prithwish Daw - Solo Show Awardee, Inception Grant 2023
2024-08-23 11:00 - 2024-08-30 19:00 | 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.

Incept in Baroda
2024-09-08 11:00 - 2024-10-07 18:30 | 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)

Precarious
2024-11-22 11:00 - 2024-11-30 19:00 | Bikaner House, Pandara Road, India Gate, New Delhi, India
Curated by Rahul Kumar

Does the feeling of uncertainty always create an uneasy sensation? The fear of the unknown, the non-predictability of an outcome, or something that is not held secure enough – what do these situations mean to us? By nature, we crave certitude and assurance. Trains running on time, the monsoon arriving when expected, and the maps giving an accurate assessment of traffic congestion, our lives revolve around all things calculable with great degree of certainty. Ironically, most, if not all, of life and its events remain somewhat unpredictable. Even the best of trend analysis fails and the most securely constructed structures fall. How do we then deal with and respond to these notions of delicate, unstable, and often perilous situations? Do we become unreasonably obsessed and paranoid, or merely conscious and possibly careful? Does the idea of the unknown and the element of surprise add to our experience, encouraging us to give our best?
Precarious brings together nine early-career visual artists who explore various themes of contemporary times, interpreting what it means to live on the edge. Sanal PT and Ashok Baski examine the agrarian culture, layered with underlying politics of food production and consumption. Rapid urbanization and influx of technology in the name of development has altered the social fabric. However, the plight of the farmers and voice of rural-India remains unheard. Sanal heavily references the landscape of his home-town in Kerela. His narrative is based on the landless people, often seen hiding behind a coconut tree or melting into the paddy fields in his work. Using symbolic elements, his works reconstruct the possibilities and values of the landscape through a subaltern political lens, opening the discourse of marginalization and collective consciousness. Ashok on the other hand, presents the everyday and the mundane. A scene that is quintessential representative of an Indian village is a potent reminder of the simple life that is close to nature. What further makes his work intriguing is the use of soil from his native place to paint the imagery. Agwma Basumatari is driven by his profound connection with the woodcut print process, which he believes also respects the environment. He celebrates the attire and the people of the indigenous Bodo tribe. He pays homage to the culture of the land by using hand woven traditional cloth as his canvas, but reminds us of the sensitive nature of the lives of the native people in contemporary times.
Parul Sharma and Savitha Ravi use a personal lens to navigate the architectural elements that evoke deep emotions for them. Savitha goes down the memory lane through photographs of her ancestral home. While the house has ceased to exist, the idea of spaces within it still reminds her of her childhood. She explores this by layering various images executed in multiple media. From metal plates and printed on canvas, Savitha uses cast concrete in her installation. For Parul, the dense urban jungle of her metro city becomes her muse. Houses that are situated in close proximity, often leaving a sliver for the sunlight to pass through, seem to be collapsing in her sculptures. Deepanjali Shekhar closely observes the fragility of human relationships. Metaphors of the feminine have a constant presence in her imagery through flowers and the triangular form. She showcases the cycle of life through a tree with deep roots, spread branches that bear fruit, and fallen seeds, ready to germinate.
Rajat Kumar’s paintings are a window to the obscure and ordinary spaces around us. A dimly lit staircase, a bed with crushed linen, or the façade of a building, his works inevitably create a déjà vu for his viewers. There is strangeness and yet a sense of familiarity to these images. With whispering strokes of paint, Rajat reminds us of the profoundness and delicate nature of our association with places. In contrast, Nandita Mukherjee is fascinated with narratives embedded in objects, in particular those that have been transformed through human interaction. She presents her drawings of these overlooked objects as a reservoir of history that they have witnessed, almost as keepers of time flown. Each surface, for Nandita, tells myths and stories accumulated, waiting to be unraveled through these silent storytellers.
Pradip Das’s assemblages remind the viewers of displacement and dislocation. A reference to the undivided border of India and Bangladesh in one of his works, for instance, has a personal lived history as well as a commentary on the volatility of socio-political circumstances. His work is multi-layered, representing complexities of identity and resilience.
Each practice presents a lens to view a version of reality. Loosely held together, delicately balanced, and fragile, the artists compel us to take cognizance and hope for an increased consciousness.
Written by Rahul Kumar

PHOTO INCEPT
2025-01-17 11:00 - 2025-02-14 18:30 | 227, South Point Mall, Golf Course Road, Gurugram, India
WHAT YOU SEE?
WHAT YOU SEE…
Twelve lens-based artists present thought-provoking imagery
Curated by Rahul Kumar

The advent of photography stirred the way visual art was perceived. Since a photograph could depict the world more accurately and realistically, artists had to reinvent themselves. And hence came the portrayal of expression and emotion, primarily through paintings and drawings, or three-dimensional forms. Over the past few decades, life came a full circle with photography actively being used to narrate expressive stories, going beyond capturing the world as is.
‘what you see?, marks the launch of Photo Incept, a gallery focused on lens-based practices from the region. The show comprises of selected artists chosen from an open call soliciting portfolios. Each practice pushes the paradigm of image making. Photographs capturing a fleeting moment that is entrenched in deep emotion, images that are altered to build a narrative, and innovative use of material and process are key to the curatorial vision of the exhibit.
Photo Incept aspires to bring forward the best of early to mid-career lens-based practices from the region. Taking a mentor first approach, we aim to provide a platform that expands the artistic approach and appreciation for photographic works.

London Art Fair 2025
2025-01-22 - 2025-01-26 | Business Design Centre, London, United Kingdom
Songs from My Homeland: A Memoir of Life & Rituals

Our presentation at the London Art Fair focuses on Songs from My Homeland … a memoir of life and rituals, a deeply evocative theme that celebrates stories from the heart of India. It brings together the works of Ram Dongre, Gavara Satyanarayana, and Viswanath Kuttum, three artists whose practices offer a compelling narrative of heritage, community, and resilience.
Each artist reflects a unique perspective: Dongre delves into the intersection of tradition and modernity, drawing inspiration from fading frescoes and rural landscapes. Satyanarayana uses intricate woodblock prints to explore the struggles of India’s agrarian sector, informed by his personal experiences of food scarcity and inequity. Kuttum’s textured, monochromatic paintings pay homage to the tribal rituals and fragile beauty of life in the Andamans, capturing the deep connection between land and memory.
What makes this presentation particularly distinctive is not just its thematic resonance but also the choice of mediums—engraved woodblock, layered oil paintings, and the use of a unique materials like beeswax, paraffin and linseed oil —which amplify the narrative and emotional depth of these stories. Together, these works transcend regional boundaries, offering universal reflections on resilience, identity, and the human connection to place.
This is our debut at the London Art Fair, and we are thrilled to bring these voices to a global audience, spotlighting narratives that are both intimate and profoundly relevant.

India Art Fair 2025
2025-02-06 - 2025-02-09 | NSIC Exhibition Complex, Okhla Phase III, Okhla Industrial Estate, New Delhi, India
Art Incept is delighted to announce its participation in the upcoming edition of the India Art Fair, set to take place in New Delhi this February. As a platform dedicated to showcasing and promoting contemporary art, we are excited to present a rich and diverse selection of works from a range of emerging and mid-career artists. This year’s presentation features a variety of mediums, including metal, terracotta, acrylic, and mixed media, each work telling a unique story and offering a fresh perspective on the contemporary art scene.
The featured artists include Abhishek Dodiya, whose striking sculptures in mild steel and ship’s metal scraps explore themes of community and labor; Kishwar Kiani, who transforms stainless steel into captivating forms that challenge perceptions; Ram Dongre, whose large-scale terracotta sculptures evoke elemental forces and cosmic harmony. Also included are Rinku Choudhary, whose abstract acrylics on canvas captivate with their vibrant energy; Santanu Dey, whose innovative combination of lithography plates and acrylics offers a commentary on societal issues; Satyanarayana Gavara, presenting a collection of engraved woodblock prints and mixed media works that weave narrative and memory; Sunil Yadav, whose mixed media canvases reveal unseen realities through vibrant colors and textures; and Viswanath Kuttum, who uses wax, resin, and pastel to craft metaphorical landscapes that bridge the spiritual and the earthly.

Inception Grant Show 2025
2025-03-08 11:00 - 2025-03-16 19:00 | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
We are thrilled to invite you to an exclusive showcase featuring the outstanding artworks of the 13 finalists of our Inception Grant 2025.
Selected from a highly competitive pool of over 700 talented artists from across South Asia, these finalists represent the very best of emerging creativity in the region. The selection process was both rigorous and inspiring, as our esteemed internal jury faced the challenging task of narrowing down such a diverse and remarkable array of artistic talent.
We are proud to present the Inception Grant 2025 Finalists—Arindam Manna, Ayesha Sultana, Badush Babu, Bhanu Srivastav, Bhavin Patel, Chaitali Paranjape, Debajit R Paul, Malinda Jayasinghe, Megha Singh, Riya Chandwani, Rohan & Roshan Anvekar, Rohit Varekar, and Shremoe D Prasad—each of whom brings a unique perspective, innovative approach, and compelling vision to their work. Their artistic expressions reflect the dynamic and evolving landscape of contemporary art in South Asia, and we are honored to celebrate their journey. We look forward to sharing this extraordinary display with you.

Summer Shift
2025-06-28 - 2025-07-12 | 227, South Point Mall, Golf Course Road, Gurugram, India
We are delighted to bring forth to you our newest showcase- ‘Summer Shift: Playful departures and quiet transformations’, showcasing the works of Ayushi Ojha, Brojeswer Mondal, Deepanjali Shekhar, Jaimini Jariwala, Krupali Maraviya, Prasnhu Thakore, Rinku Choudhary, Savitha Ravi and Shahanshah Mittal. On view from 28th June till 12th July, 2025.

Summer Shift is a celebration of artistic agility—a curated moment where structure softens, and the spirit of play leads the way. This exhibition invites artists to explore the unfamiliar: to revisit forgotten ideas, experiment with new forms, and gently push against their own creative boundaries.
Working within an intentionally intimate format of smaller-scale works, each artist offers a glimpse into their evolving practice. The result is a constellation of thoughtful experiments—playful in process, serious in intent. From shifts in medium and subject to subtle changes in tone or technique, these works capture the beauty of transition and the possibilities it holds.
Summer Shift is a show of quiet departures and bold beginnings—a space for curiosity, discovery, and transformation. We hope to offer viewers a show that is fresh, unexpected, and full of discovery—works that delight, provoke, and perhaps mark the beginning of something new.

Original Shadows
2025-07-17 17:00 - 2025-08-30 18:30 | 227, South Point Mall, Golf Course Road, Gurugram, India
Immerse yourself in a dynamic exhibition showcasing 14 contemporary artists redefining the possibilities of printmaking—where time-honored, hands-on techniques meet masterful precision to turn paper into works of art.
𝙊𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙨 brings together a selection of works that reflect both the discipline and imagination required in printmaking—where every mark is intentional, every layer the result of touch, chemistry, and control.

Step into a world where traditional methods such as etching, woodcut, lithography, serigraphy, and mezzotint are not just preserved but reimagined through a contemporary lens.
𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀: Aditi Singh Shekhawat | Agwma Basumatari | Anupama Dey | Attri Chetan | Chhering Negi | Isha Sharma | Manish Kumar | Narendra Kumar Sain | Naveen Tungana | Nisha Dhinwa | Prashant Phirangi | Raja Boro | Tushar Sahay | Yogesh Kumar

𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻 :
📅 𝗧𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝟭𝟳𝘁𝗵 𝗝𝘂𝗹𝘆 | 𝟱 𝗽𝗺
📍 𝗔𝗿𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁, 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗣𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗚𝗼𝗹𝗳 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱, 𝗚𝘂𝗿𝘂𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺
𝗢𝗻 𝗩𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹:
📅 𝗦𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝟯𝟬𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝘂𝗴𝘂𝘀𝘁 | 𝟭𝟭 𝗮𝗺 – 𝟲.𝟯𝟬 𝗽𝗺
𝗦𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱
Curatorial Advisor: Rahul Kumar
Compiled by: Jasneet Singh Bindra

Printmaking has long held a space between the intimate and the democratic—rooted in tradition, yet constantly evolving through experimentation. With Original Shadows, we are delighted to present a carefully curated survey of contemporary printmaking that not only honours the legacy of the medium but also introduces the bold and diverse voices defining its possibilities today.
This exhibition brings together a range of emerging practitioners working across techniques—from etchings and woodcuts to lithographs, linocuts, and hybrid processes that push the boundaries of the printed image. Each work is the result of a meticulous, hands-on engagement with material, surface, and time. While the final print may appear silent, it holds within it traces of pressure, movement, repetition, and resistance.
What makes this show especially meaningful is its invitation to learn. Through simple explanations of process and historical context, Original Shadows hopes to open up printmaking to a new generation of viewers and collectors—those curious not just about what contemporary art looks like, but how it’s made and why it matters. In doing so, we hope to create space for deeper engagement: with the medium, with the maker, and with the enduring tension between the original and the multiple.
As a gallery committed to mentoring emerging talent and building new pathways of understanding and appreciation, this exhibition reflects our belief that art must be both seen and decoded—felt, but also known.
We invite you to look closely, linger longer, and let these shadows reveal the many layers of printmaking’s original voice.
Gayatri Singh
Director
Art Incept

From Point to Infinity: locutions in dot, line, and space
2025-08-03 11:00 - 2025-08-11 18:00 | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
We are glad to invite you to our upcoming exhibition, From Point to Infinity: locutions in dot, line, and space, curated by Rahul Kumar. A dot, the simplest element of visual design, represents a location. Its defining characteristic is that it is a point of focused attention. A dot becomes an anchor to provide reference relative to space around it. However, when a dot is increased in size, symmetrically or asymmetrically, it forms a shape. And when two dots at distance are connected using a series of dots adjacent to each other, it forms a line. A dot has no dimension and a line has just one. In both the instances, the play with the sense of space is accentuated. A shape contains space and a line demarcates or divides space. Further, when it comes to working with elements in a design, we have two basic classes to work with. We have positive forms and negative space…what is contained and what is left out. Extending this further, the element of space itself has a multitude of interpretations. The physical or metaphysical, the real or imagined – where is space, where does it begin, and does it have an end?
The proposed show will explore the ideas of basic elements of design in the most simplified way, layered with space making in the architectural context. The works will employ dots or lines to form, expand, question, and re-interpret what space could mean. The group will comprise early-to-mid-career visual artists working in distinct mediums to offer a fresh perspective into the overall theme.

Artists: Aditya Mandlik | Arjun Sara | Deepak Agasthya | Jit Chowdhury | Kishwar Kiani | Nilanjan Das | Niyeti Chadha | Parul Sharma | Sandeep Ghule

Opens on: 2nd August | 5 pm
On view till: 10th August | 11 am – 6 pm
Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House

Silent Sprint- A Solo Show by Santanu Dey
2025-09-18 11:00 - 2025-09-22 18:30 | Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, 110001, India
We’re thrilled to announce 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗵𝗶𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘂 𝗗𝗲𝘆 — a milestone moment! -𝗦𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴
Santanu returns with works that lay bare the fragile balance between ecology and our constructed realities, tracing how humans inch by inch claim nature, leaving behind footprints of an artificial, mechanical world. His works echo urgent questions of ecology, consumerism, and survival.
From the Director:
It gives me immense pride to present Silent Spring—the second solo exhibition of Santanu Dey. This is a special moment for us at Art Incept, as Santanu’s show marks our very first second solo with any of our artists. Working with early-career artists, our journey is often about nurturing beginnings. To now witness one of our own artists grow, evolve, and return with a second body of work is both an achievement for the artist and a milestone for us as a gallery.
Santanu has remained deeply committed to his practice from the very start. His work explores the shifting relationship between nature and the urban landscape, often reimagining industrial remnants such as e-waste, steel, and paper into quiet, poetic forms. These materials—discarded, overlooked, yet deeply symbolic—become vehicles for reflection on ecological strain, consumer culture, and environmental loss.
What makes Santanu’s practice truly compelling is the coherence between his message, his materials, and the way he lives his life. His language is minimal yet resonant, speaking softly but urgently of the fragility of our natural world and the quiet impacts of modern life.
It is with great pleasure and pride that we present Silent Spring, a powerful continuation of Santanu’s artistic journey. We hope this exhibition not only reflects his evolution as an artist but also prompts us to pause, reflect, and reimagine the spaces we build—and the traces we leave behind.
-Gayatri Singh,
Founder & Director, Art Incept

𝟭𝟴𝘁𝗵 – 𝟮𝟮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱
Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam | New Delhi

Everything I Waited to Forget: A Solo Show by Km. Khushboo
2025-11-01 11:00 - 2025-11-29 18:00 | 227, South Point Mall, Golf Course Road, Gurugram, India
Art Incept is delighted to announce Everything I Waited to Forget, a solo exhibition by Km. Khushboo, Design and Edit by Prima Kurien. The exhibition brings together a body of prints that reflect her meditative engagement with life, death, and transformation.

Khushboo’s visual language emerges from rhythm and repetition—each mark a quiet invocation. Her practice, which began as an exploration of mortality, has evolved into a search for renewal and transcendence. Moving from figural forms to abstraction, her works dissolve the boundaries between form and formlessness, inviting viewers to encounter moments of stillness and revelation.

Drawing upon elemental symbols of mud, water, and fire, Khushboo’s works embody the cyclical nature of creation and dissolution. Through a sensitive interplay of text, image, and incision, she transforms printmaking into an act of release—where every etched line becomes both a memory and a letting go.

Everything I Waited to Forget invites audiences to pause, reflect, and experience how image and silence, remembering and forgetting, coexist within the same breath.

About the Artist:
Born in 2001 in Uttar Pradesh, Khushboo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Painting from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, and a Master’s degree in Printmaking from the Department of Graphic Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat.

Grounded in self-expression, her work evolves from personal experiences and intuitive responses to the world around her, delving into its spiritual and philosophical dimensions. What began as an exploration of death as the ultimate truth has grown into a deeper contemplation of transformation, transience, and renewal. Drawing and Printmaking—especially etching, drypoint, and woodcut—has become a meditative space for her. Each mark and layer embodies both presence and release, turning process into reflection.

Through her engagement with text and image, Khushboo explores acts of leaving, releasing, and accepting—embracing both wholeness and fragments while remaining open to change. Her work has been presented in several national and international exhibitions, including Voices from India in Cincinnati (USA), Nabh Sparsh at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi and Mumbai, At Crossroads during the Tapi Festival in Surat, Without Cube at the MSU Fine Arts Faculty Gallery, Incept in Baroda at Art Incept in Gurugram, and the CIMA Awards Show 2025 in Kolkata.

She has been recognized with the Jeram Patel Award (2024) and the Manorama Young Printmakers Grant (2025). Through these evolving experiences, Khushboo continues to deepen her understanding of the visible and the invisible—each work becoming a quiet meditation on impermanence, memory, and transformation.

Art Mumbai 2025
2025-11-13 10:00 - 2025-11-16 19:00 | Mahalakshmi Racecourse, Mumbai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Art Incept at Art Mumbai 2025Booth C45 | Mahalaxmi Racecourse, Mumbai | 13–16 November 2025
Marking Art Incept’s debut at Art Mumbai, this presentation brings together a compelling selection of voices from across South Asia — artists whose practices navigate memory, landscape, identity, and transformation through deeply personal vocabularies. United by a spirit of introspection and experimentation, their works expand the language of contemporary art, moving fluidly between material, emotion, and philosophy.
From the meditative charcoal drawings of Badush Babu and Bedamati Majhi, to the lyrical abstractions of Pankaj Chouhan, and the delicate indigo renderings of memory by Jit Chowdhury, the exhibition reveals how form can become a vessel for reflection. Debajit R Paul’s poetic landscapes and Sanal PT’s layered narratives on history and resistance explore the porous boundaries between the real and the remembered. Parul Sharma’s brick-dust paintings evoke the density of urban life, while Rinku Choudhary’s intimate figurations dwell in the silences of domesticity.
The presentation also highlights sculptural and conceptual explorations — Kishwar Kiani’s stainless-steel constructions reimagine space as rhythm and structure, Sunil Yadav visualizes the invisible frequencies of sound, and Ram Dongre channels memory and impermanence through a dialogue of erasure and colour.
Together, these artists articulate the pulse of a generation shaped by transition — their works standing as meditations on solitude, resilience, and the quiet persistence of the human spirit.

The Body Speaks
2025-12-05 11:00 - 2026-01-10 18:30 | 227, South Point Mall, Golf Course Road, Gurugram, India
Curated by Rahul Kumar, the exhibition explores the human body’s ability to convey emotions, stories, and ideas through works that present the body as a canvas, a vessel, and a voice, highlighting its complexities and vulnerabilities. Artists presented here examine the figure as an emotional landscape, aiming to reveal inner worlds through expressive forms or narratives, and to reference the role of the body in shaping identity, culture, and personal stories. They express vulnerability or strength through the body’s fragility and resilience. The body is also used as a metaphor to symbolise the universality of human experiences.
To approach the human body in visual arts is to enter an ancient and ever-renewing conversation, a dialogue between flesh and form, between the visible outline and the invisible interiority it contains. The body is our first landscape, the terrain through which we encounter the world, and the vessel through which the world encounters us. Artists return to it not merely to depict but to decipher, to understand what it means to inhabit a body, to move through space, to desire, to ache, to age, to transform. In every gesture, the body holds memory. Every contour carries the imprint of time, labour, joy, and grief. An artist listens to these traces, translating them into line, shadow, and texture. In this act of observation, the body becomes more than its anatomy; it becomes a metaphor for vulnerability, resilience, longing, and the fragile boundary between self and other.
Across centuries, the body has been celebrated, idealised, scrutinised, abstracted, broken apart, and rebuilt. Yet its mystery remains intact. Even in its simplest forms, a curve of a shoulder, the turn of a neck, it offers an entire universe of emotion. To study the body is to study humanity itself: its contradictions, its tenderness, its complications. In contemporary practice, the body expands further. It becomes political, technological, hybrid, fragmented, or fluid. It becomes a site of questioning – what does it mean to belong? To be seen? To be free?

Participating Artists:
Badush Babu, Deepanjali Shekhar, Indu Antony, Isha Sharma Haritash, Rinku Choudhary
