TARQ is pleased to announce Brobdingnag Paradox, Pratap Morey’s third solo exhibition at the gallery, and his first after 2019. In these monumental photographic collages, the artist returns to the city’s restless cycle of construction and growth, echoing its constant building, stacking, and rearranging. His abstract compositions play with perception and “spatial compression,” through forms that appear to slip between the real and the surreal.
Between Morey’s delicate, hand drawn lines, if you look closely, you’ll see how he makes macro elements micro; a tall building, huge column or bridge is made tiny, the size of an insect. To do this, he follows a simple principle: all his cutouts fit into the palm of his hand. For him, this is a radical act - a kind of retaliation or reciprocation. Navigating through these vast structures often makes the artist feel tiny or less human, so there’s a peculiar satisfaction in rendering these massive forms into miniature ones.
Working from photographs and observations gathered during sustained construction-site visits in the city, Morey plays with scale and distance to reflect its nature. The works offer a bird’s-eye view from afar and reveal intricate details up close, much like a city that appears polished and full of promise from a distance but is messy and complicated in lived experience.
The grid has become a key compositional tool for the artist, referencing the modularity of glass-clad buildings as seen in Camouflage Subterfuge. The work refers to how these facades reflect the sky, amplifying the enormity of the buildings while simultaneously dissolving them into their surroundings. Morey is drawn to these illusions embedded in urban development.
Morey’s approach to titling his works adds another layer of discovery, they are playful and deliberately complex. By using ambiguous, “art speak”, the titles read like “phenomena” for the viewer to engage with and interpret. Along with his works, they subtly hint at the ideas of spectacle and illusion that urban development projects often create. Similarly, the title of the show refers to ‘Brobdingnagian’ meaning enormous in size, invoking a state of overwhelming scale. It reflects the artist’s recurring experience of feeling dwarfed within the metropolis.
Further, form and repetition are central to his practice. In Deceptive Allure, for instance, the use of shiny reflective paper invokes the allure often associated with redevelopment projects. Speaking of repetition, the artist explains, “As you navigate through the city you see the same columns, same bridges, same dish tv antennas, it’s the same topography everywhere. Are you even moving, if you keep seeing the same thing?...This repetition is so mundane, so banal, so submissive. It’s like oscillating...moving from one place to another while still remaining in the same place.”
The exhibition thus offers a lens into contemporary city life, where the viewer can observe how constant construction mirrors societal and psychological restlessness, both inside and outside the gallery space. The exhibition catalogue will feature a conversation between Alisha Sadikot, public historian and educator, and Pratap Morey.
About the Artist
Pratap Morey (b.1981) is a Mumbai-based artist with a post-graduate diploma in Indian Aesthetics from Mumbai University and a Graduate degree in Fine Art from Vasai Vikasini College of Visual Arts.
His solo exhibitions include Concrete Ciphers, TARQ, Mumbai (2019); Lost right Angle, Space Gachang, Deagu, South Korea (2017) and measure | decipher, TARQ, Mumbai (2015).
He has participated in several curated group shows, including The Artist As, curated by Vaidehi Gohil and Sonakshi Bhandari, TARQ, Mumbai (2025); Bambai Se Aaya Mera Dost, Method, New Delhi (2025); Overlaps at TARQ, Mumbai (2024); Space Studio Alumni Show, Space Studio, Vadodara (2024); Spaced Out curated by Rahul Kumar at Art Incept, New Delhi (2022); Navigating Geometries, an online show with TARQ, Mumbai (2020); Making Spaces curated by Saloni Doshi at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai (2019); Under Construction, curated by Anuj Daga, Khoj Artist Association, New Delhi (2018); Planes of Experience, Zones of Action, curated by Kaiwan Mehta, Gallery Max Muller Bhavan, Mumbai (2017), Jeonnam International Sumuk Pre-biennale, Jeollanam-do, South Korea (2017); Red moon song, curated by Georgina Maddox, Apeejay Art, New Delhi (2016); Imagined futures, Reconstructed past, curated by Meera Menezes, Gallery Anant, New Delhi (2016); The Unbearable Closeness of Being at Gallery Engendered, New Delhi (2015); the Art on Paper biennale at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, North Carolina, USA (2014); Interstices at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2012); Stop Making Sense at False Ceiling Gallery, Mumbai (2012); and @rt Virtually Real at Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi (2012) among others.
His art fair participation includes Art Mumbai, Mumbai (2024) and India Art Fair, New Delhi (2024, 2023, 2020, 2017), represented by TARQ, Mumbai; AD Design Show, Mumbai (2018); United Art Fair, co-curated by Meera Menezes under the Artistic Direction of Peter Nagy, New Delhi (2013) and India Art Fair, New Delhi (2013), represented by Art Alive Gallery. Morey has participated in residencies at several institutions such as Space Studios, Vadodara, India (2017); Gachang Art Studio, Deagu, South Korea (2017); Harmony Art Foundation, India (2015); the Artists-In-Residence programme hosted by the President of India at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi (2014); CRACK International Residency, Bangladesh (2013); Space 118, Mumbai (2012); and Uttarayan Art Foundation, Vadodara (2012).
Pratap’s artworks were displayed as part of the Lexus Design Awards in 2022 and have been on display at the Meta office in Gurugram as part of the Meta Open Art Program since 2021.
He is also the recipient of the Bendre-Husain-Scholarship, India (2013) and the La Critique award at Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, France (2012). He currently lives and works in Mumbai, India.
