Abir Karmakar (b. 1977) – whose work will be on view later this month in Shifting Shapes/Unstable Signs curated by Robert Storr at the Yale University School of Art – pushes, performatively, the skin of sensuality and gender norms in his large-format oil-on-canvas paintings.  The light that saturates the canvases sets the stage for the artist’s use of the privacy of the home, or the hotel room, as a theatre for radical self-experimentation. Karmakar’s solo showings in Bombay, Berlin, London and New Delhi have received critical acclaim in leading newspapers and magazines, including Der Tagesspiegel, Time Out Mumbai and Delhi, Live Mint (The Wall Street Journal) and The Arts Magazine of India to name a few.

Manish Nai (b. 1980), recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, New York, 2004-2005, extends the expressive possibilities offered by his chosen medium – jute – combining new media and heavy textile to create fine structures on canvas.  To quote critic Girish Shahane in The Arts Magazine of India, “The surprisingly complex process the artist employs imbues his work with a sense of precision and rigour married to tactility and contemplativeness.” Manish Nai artist has been singled out for a solo presentation at Galerie Karsten Greve in Cologne, which will open in April this year.

The work of New York based artist Kanishka Raja (b. 1970 in Calcutta) who will have his very first solo in India at our gallery parallel to ARCO Madrid, has been featured in exhibitions such as Fables at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and Counterparts: Emerging Artists and Their Influences at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, amongst many others.  In 2004, Raja received the Digitas / ICA Artist Prize which included a solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

Manish Nai, Untitled, 2008, jute collage over gateway tracing paper and jute cloth on canvas, 132.5 x 193 cm

Manish Nai, Untitled (Detail), 2008, jute collage over gateway tracing paper and jute cloth on canvas, 132,5 x 193 cm