Debasish Mukherjee, Floating Nights (set of 4), 2023, acrylic on wood, 45 x 40.5 in.

This week Akar Prakar opened two new exhibitions in New Delhi with innovative artworks by two important contemporary Indian artists.

Debasish Mukherjee: Whispering Lanes
February 18-March 17, 2023
Akar Prakar New Delhi
Curated by Siddhi Shailendra

The concept of spaces is often defined by the lines and limitations placed in a three-dimensional area, but what these primary geometrical definitions neglect to take into consideration is our inhabitation of these spaces. The weight of our experiences and memories within the walls of one’s home or the street crossed too often are woven into the fabric of the place. In his latest solo exhibition, artist Debasish Mukherjee (born 1973) makes use of these limitations, the elemental aspects of the spaces, the line, the architecture and the everyday objects to create visual metaphors in an effort to uncover the dormant stories of his past.

An aesthetic that combines the language of abstract expressionism and structural minimalism, Mukherjee experiments with the medium of sculptural installations, paintings, and textile-based works employing a purposefully limited color palette. The silhouettes of the ghats, the lanes, the structures, and the steps take on the manifestation of the city of Benares, a place that is his muse and a mystery yet to be solved. Having spent years of his childhood at his maternal grandmother’s house in Benares and then again as a student of painting at the Banaras Hindu University, he spent some of the most formative years of his life in the city.

A remembrance of the days gone by and the reality of its present, the essence of the city forms the premise of the suite of works displayed in this exhibition. With a history of countless cycles of destruction and revival at the center of its past, the works like Monsoon Fables and Pakka Mahal are a reference to the recurring historical and current displacement and resettlement of the populace. The carved-out bricks and grids of sites and lands, within the motif of the almirah wide open and submerged, connotes the idea of unlocking our memories of the familiar places of the past.

Read more, click here

Jayashree Chakravarty, Rajbari (detail), 2004-2022, oil, acrylic, cotton, tea stain, grass, seeds, roots, jute, synthetic glue on canvas, 42 x 192 in.

Jayashree Chakravarty
India Art Fair 2023
Booth A4
at NSIC Ground Okhla, New Delhi

Jayashree Chakravarty (born 1956) is a Kolkata based Indian visual artist, working with the medium of paintings, and large-scale installations of paper with mixed media. Rooted in the themes of ecology and nature, her works often include organic materials such as grass, roots, leaves and seeds with paper.