This year at India Art Fair, Nature Morte presents a group of works by both Indian and international artists, including Subodh Gupta, Manu Parekh, Jitish Kallat, Dayanita Singh, Manish Nai, Ragini Bhow, Sagarika Sundaram, Bharti Kher, Asim Waqif, Dhruvi Acharya, Ayesha Singh, Abir Karmakar, Mona Rai, Viswanadhan, Vibha Galhotra, Matti Braun, Oliver Beer Eddie Martinez and Raghav Babbar.
On view at the booth will be archival pigment prints by Dayanita Singh. Created over two decades, the works showcase the breadth of mediums used by the artist. Singh’s ‘Architectural Montages’ features archival pigment prints that are innovative constructions blending fragments of real spaces into imagined ones, defying traditional perspectives on time, place and reality. Rooted in her fascination with light and form, these capture architectural elements from various eras and locations, including structures in India, Japan, Italy and Sri Lanka.
Bharti Kher’s 2018 sculpture, entitled “The Watchman”, exemplifies her fascination with the iconography of mythologies and hybridized figures, as it combines the male and the female, alluding to the androgynous form of Ardhnarisvara.
Dual identity is explored with a different approach by London-based Indian artist Raghav Babbar, whose figurative works bring to life subjects rooted in his Indian heritage. His technique has drawn comparisons with 20th century British styles, particularly his layering of oil paint and bold brush strokes.
A painting on paper by Manu Parekh, dated 2021, from his “Flowers from Heaven” series, will also be on display. Best known for his Banaras Landscapes, Parekh’s works are characterised by his intuitive use of colour, bold brushstrokes, and powerful compositions. He has experimented with colourful abstractions, sexual imagery and figuration, responding as much to nature as to daily life and social issues. The women in his works are represented as nature spirits, plant forms, germinating seeds and allegorical figures, recalling mythological traditions.
Geometrics
Artist duo Thukral & Tagra will have a work from their Arboretum series. Previously showcased at Nature Morte in both New Delhi (2023) and Mumbai (2024), the works juxtapose images of flora with pixelated geometrics representing technical glitches. The work aims to initiate a discourse on humans’ altering relationship with nature, as the cloud of technology engulfs us from every direction.
International highlights from this year’s booth include German artist Matti Braun’s untitled painting on silk and a sculpture of iridescent glass spheres. Both pieces were exhibited at Braun’s first show in India, entitled “Noil,” earlier this year at Nature Morte’s Mumbai gallery. The works exemplify Braun’s preoccupation with Indian history and traditions, which he was first introduced to when he visited the country 20 years ago. His relationship with India only deepened with subsequent visits, resulting in his practice being deeply affected by Indian personalities such as Satyajit Ray, Vikram Sarabhai and Rabindranath Tagore.
‘Love and Validation’ from Oliver Beer’s Resonance Painting series offers an introduction to the British artist’s unique technique that freezes musical notes of the song he was listening to while creating each work. He lays a canvas covered with dry powder over a speaker playing music, and lets the powder create different patterns when exposed to the sound waves. Beer then freezes these patterns to create abstract works that are a visual representation of that particular song.
Monumental
Coinciding with the India Art Fair, Nature Morte is hosting two solo shows by young women artists in its New Delhi gallery spaces. “Polyphony” by New York-based Indian artist Sagarika Sundaram is underway at the gallery located in the Dhan Mill compound in the neighborhood of Chhatarpur. While Sagarika works with a range of textiles, her primary material is felt, which she makes by hand and dyes herself and transforms into large-scale sculptures and wall-hangings. The centrepiece of the exhibition will be a monumental work entitled “Source,” now in the collection of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
In the second gallery in the neighborhood of Vasant Vihar is presented Remen Chopra W. Van Der Vaart’s “Aurum Lazuli”. The title describes the union of gold and lapis lazuli, which symbolizes the interplay between permanence and change. In this recent body of works, Remen explores these themes by weaving the symbolism of gold and lapis lazuli into her practice. Drawing inspiration from Persian and Afghani carpets, she reimagines their intricate patterns as living maps of memory—merging geometric precision with organic forms.
Also on view in the Mumbai gallery until February 23rd is Parul Gupta’s solo show “In Praise of Limits”, featuring a group of new drawings in the artist’s signature style that explores reductive Minimalism moving into Maximalist terrain. Gupta’s precise works layer lines in different colours on top of each other, overlapping to create the illusion of movement and vibrations.
Parallel projects at India Art fair by Nature Morte artists:
Make-Shift by Asim Waqif
Asim Waqif will showcase Make-Shift, an ambitious work that examines the power of improvisation in art and design, shifting focus from rigid planning to dynamic, material-driven creation. Using a second-hand cement truck chassis and drum, along with scrap metal sourced from Laxcon Steels Limited in Ahmedabad, it highlights the transformative potential of spontaneous fabrication over planned execution. By denouncing rigidity in planning, the work embraces unpredictability, resulting in unique, context-driven forms that challenge conventional aesthetics. Waqif’s approach encourages experimentation, harnessing the rawness of metal and the energy of chance to create art that reflects immediacy. Such works exemplify how improvisation can unlock design freedom, pushing boundaries in material exploration and artistic expression.
IAF Façade by Ayesha Singh
The facade engages with Ayesha’s ongoing research on women’s contribution to Indian architecture, in the form of patronage as early as 1000 AD to women architects during the modernist era. Challenging their erasure in history, this new work honours their stories, shifting long-perpetuated perspectives towards a reimagining of collective horizons.
Orbis Unum by Vibha Galhotra
Attempting to deconstruct and dissolve mental and physical boundaries of religion, power and hierarchy amongst nations and humans, Vibha reinterprets the Latin phrase Orbis Unum (meaning One World), bleeding multi-coloured flags to white to emphasise oneness and peace. Each flag is then inscribed with words inspired from Buddhist teachings, each becoming the symbols of the new world.
