The Artist As: Curated by Vaidehi Gohil and Sonakshi Bhandari

Featuring all eighteen artists from TARQ’s program, the exhibition invites artists to inhabit the many roles, ideas and positions that characterise their practice–positions that are not assumed but also lived.

Each artists' presentation centres on a singular chosen role. Together, the works in the show build a shared space of ‘becoming’ where process becomes part of content. Through this lens, the works are presented alongside research materials, tools, notes, and other fragments of process that are often hidden away in studios or archives.

Viewers are invited to move between finished works and trajectories of process, rethinking the traditional notions separating them. Nibha Sikander (As Entomophile), Savia Mahajan (As Vessel), Pratap Morey (As Observer), and Boshudhara Mukherjee (As Collector) share a material intimacy. Their presentations include objects from their process, highlighting how structure, texture, and repetition become ways of thinking through form. These materials eventually take on the most unexpected forms— whether it is Sikander and Morey’s use of paper; Mukherjee’s use of shredded fabric; or Mahajan’s alchemy with pigments.

In other corners, Garima Gupta (As Researcher) and Apnavi Makanji (As Methodology) present research- driven works with citations that open up long-term engagements with ecology, power, and politics. Field notes and readings speak to the depth and complexity of their inquiries.

Saju Kunhan (As Chronicler), Areez Katki (As Archivist), Rithika Merchant (As Storyteller), and Parag Tandel (As Visual Autoethnographer) turn to histories—familial, historical, oral, and cultural respectively.

Their works move through memory, archive, storytelling, and tradition, offering personal responses to collective narratives in the forms of three dimensional works, that are a departure from their regular practice.

Sameer Kulavoor (As City) and Ronny Sen (As Transit) respond to the contemporary city—its architectures, gaps, and transience. Their two dimensional works hold moments of stillness within shifting urban landscapes.

Using a similar spatial vocabulary to draft a language of structure, perception, and place, Amba Sayal-Bennett (As Draftsman) and Vishwa Shroff (As Space) engage with built environments through line, drawing, and memory.

About the Curators

 

As a part of TARQ’s team Vaidehi Gohil and Sonakshi Bhandari play key roles of managing press and communications, and sales respectively. With a background in Art History and Aesthetics from Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, Vaidehi Gohil brings a nuanced understanding of visual culture. She specialises in modern and contemporary art, drawn to its relatability and accessibility. Sonakshi Bhandari is a creative professional with a background in Communication Design from ISDI Parsons, Mumbai. Her practice is rooted in interdisciplinary thinking, bridging her interests in contemporary art and design.