Installation view: The Mutual Guilt, at Maison de la Culture, Montreal
The Mutual Guilt Maison de la Culture, Montreal

On the work

The artist in his studio, reading beside a blank canvas on an easel
In the studio, Montreal

I grew up in India and learned to paint in Delhi, under Rameshwar Broota and Satish Sharma. Later I spent a few years in Canada. I paint people in rooms: bars, bedrooms, a pool at night, a laptop open on a kitchen table.

The bodies do not sit still. A hand runs too far across a table, a face slides toward a screen, someone comes apart in the heat of an afternoon. It is closer to how people look to me when they think nobody is watching, half in the room and half somewhere on a phone.

I work in oil now, after years in acrylic, and worked out the rest on my own. The studio is paid for by other work, on purpose, so the paintings do not have to please anyone. The painters I keep going back to are Bacon, Auerbach and Dumas, less for how the pictures look than for how little they lie.

Work

Information

Exhibitions

  • 2026Maison de la Culture Notre-Dame-de-GrâceMontreal. Solo exhibition, April
  • 2026Round Them OrangesJaipur. Group exhibition, March
  • 2025Ravi Jain Memorial Awards ExhibitionDhoomimal Gallery, New Delhi. October
  • 2024For the Love of GameEspace Loulou, Montreal. December
  • 2024Galerie Robert PoulinMontreal. Group exhibition, January
  • JMC GalleryMontreal. Group exhibition
  • 2021Culture’s CompassHumber College, Toronto. Group exhibition
  • 2019Triveni GalleryDelhi. Group exhibition

Education

  • 2020Humber CollegeToronto. Graphic design and illustration, 2020 to 2021
  • 2018Triveni Kala SangamNew Delhi. Painting under Rameshwar Broota and Satish Sharma, 2018 to 2020

Residencies

  • 2026Round Them OrangesJaipur. 14 March to 2 April