The team at TARQ is delighted to announce Happenstance, Boshudhara Mukherjee’s third solo exhibition at the gallery. This new suite of work showcases the artist’s developments in various self-taught weaving and crocheting techniques, now on an increasingly ambitious scale. In this exhibition, Boshudhara’s intricate weaves transform the quiet, intimate gallery walls into texturally dynamic spaces that pulse with character, inviting viewers into an immersive encounter where material, memory, and space converge.
The title of this show, Happenstance, refers to Boshudhara’s understanding of the circumstances in which her work comes to be. She believes it is an organic, instinctive process, one that comes from muscle memory, and the urge to create forms that have their own personalities. Look closer and you find not only is each work carefully considered, sourced and constructed, but by the end of it, each work has a persona, an energy and a complex relationship with the artist who made it.
Working on a single work at a time, Boshudhara spends several months weaving and indeed has spent the entirety of her life collecting the shreds and fabrics that are carefully composed to make a particular work. In a conversation with her, trying to understand which fabrics are collected, and why, it often boils down to the simplest of factors, the first being size. This approach to collecting has created an immense, informal archive of old clothes, saris, cotton and even string used to tie exam papers together. According to the artist, “Fabric, cloth, thread has this beautiful way of holding memory, texture, and time. Every stitch, cut, tear, fold, weave or knot carries its own quiet story. My work is less about executing a plan and more about responding to what’s right in front of me. I try to stay open: to accidents, to instinct, to the quiet voice of the material itself.”
Her work is a testament to her training in painting, as while the work is eventually shown in the three-dimensional space it occupies, it is made with a two-dimensional perspective in mind. About her process, Boshudhara says, “[it] is slow and laborious, shaped by layers of small decisions, emotional turns and intuitive choices that build on each other. Each piece evolves through a series of persistent ‘what if’s’ and unplanned moments, a meet-cute with material, falling in love with a scrap of fabric or a particular thread, an unexpected attachment to a colour, and suddenly the whole piece pivots around that moment and something unexpected unfolds. These little surprises are what keep me connected to the work.”
About the Artist
Persistently engaging with materials and different kinds of fabric, Boshudhara Mukherjee’s
practice has undergone growth, change, occasional loss, and cyclical rediscovery. Born out of the urge to free canvas or fabric from functional confines, her work ushers a spotlight on the organic growth and evolution of forms that are free from claustrophobic frameworks.
In the last decade, there has been a slow yet deliberate shift in her practice, from the stoic,
white-coated canvas, with its stiffness and strength, to a softer, playful and free moving fabric. Shedding preconceived notions, she has embraced new techniques and materials in her recent works to include crocheting and sometimes stitching.
Boshudhara studied painting at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda and has been
exhibiting actively since her graduation in 2008. She received the Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Grant in 2013, the Inlaks Foundation Fine Art Award in 2010 as well as the Nasreen Mohamedi Foundation Scholarship in 2005-06.
Her last solo show The Familiars was held at TARQ, Mumbai in 2021. She has had four other solo shows, in Mumbai at TARQ, at the Volte gallery, and at the Gallery Sarah in Muscat, Oman.
Some of her group shows include Rehang curated by Uthra Rajgopal at Anant Art Gallery, New Delhi (2021); Emerging Canvas 5, Inko Center, Lalit Kala Academi, Chennai (2018); Waste Land, curated by Birgid Uccia, TARQ, Mumbai (2018); 4th International Emerging Artist Award, Dubai, U.A.E (2015); Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2013 represented by the Bait Muzna Gallery, Muscat,
Abu Dhabi (2013); Women’s Art Symposium, Omani Society for Fine Arts, Muscat, Oman
(2013) and Monsoon Show Concern India Foundation Artist Centre Gallery, Mumbai, India
(2010). Her public projects include Women’s Art Symposium, Muscat, Oman (2013) and The
Oryx Caravan, Muscat, Oman (2010).
Boshudhara’s work was most recently exhibited at the inaugural edition of Supper Club in Hong Kong in 2024 and in Notes from abstracting the real, Rizq Art Foundation in Abu Dhabi in 2023.
Her work has also been shown at the India Art Fair 2024 and Art Mumbai 2023 represented by TARQ, Mumbai; the British Textile Biennial, Lancashire, UK, 2023; and the 17th International Triennial of Tapestry in Lodz, Poland, 2022.
She lives and works in Bengaluru.
