Artists who challenge pre-set ideological divisions

Below are among India’s most promising contemporary artists, all working in a wide array of media so as to challenge prevailing ideological divisions, and do away with the perceived regional aesthetics in the domain of global contemporary art. Their works are currently on view at the New York-based Aicon.

Worn domestic furniture as the motif

Pooneh Maghazehe interrogates the functional and obstructed uses of worn domestic furniture by methodically peeling and stripping textiles, to reveal the underlying structural vulnerability from within. The recontextualized pieces investigate the collective identity, social psychology, and symbolic gestures and emblems that define belief structures by exposing the interdependence of materials inherent in these prefabricated former objects of comfort.

Didactic imagery of patterns

James Cullinane explores the diagrammatic possibilities and didactic imagery of patterns in process, navigating the tension between pictorial and physical space. His paintings act as architectural dictionaries and charts to navigate the labyrinthine paths forged in his layered dystopia of geometric forms, optic patterns and vibrant color.

Conveying concerns through photorealism

A Eric Ayotte explores photorealism as a medium by demonstrating the way in which moments of unrest are documented on both a grand and an intimate scale. This exploration is underlined by his characteristic fractural distortion of the image, in which it is broken down into layers of transparency collapsing foreground and background, commenting subtly on systems of organization.

An interdisciplinary artist

Jace Clayton is an interdisciplinary artist living in Brooklyn. Clayton’s practice has evolved out of his work as a DJ, built around core concerns for how sound, technology use in low-income communities, and public space interact, with an emphasis on Latin America, Africa, and the Arab world.

Work anecdotal and autobiographical in nature

Sarnath Banerjee is a graphic novelist and film maker. He is also the co-founder of Phantomville, a comics publishing house, with which he has published has published ‘The Believers’ and ‘Kashmir Pending’. One of his most high profile works was a recent public art project for the Frieze Foundation in London during the Olympics that was presented on 48 billboards throughout the city that explored the idea of the ‘loser’ in the Olympic Games. It is characteristic of his work to be anecdotal and even autobiographical, and he is liberal in his employment of humour in the context of everyday Indian experiences. Through the unusual medium of the graphic novel, he is able to describe the nuances of the rapidly changing landscape of India.

Tracing gender relationships and politics

Ruby Christi is a sculptor interested in gender relationships and politics among other themes of identity, love and loss. She works primarily in fabric and other delicate, ephemeral materials like twigs and straw, which reference the transitory nature of the human experience. Tending towards doll-like sculptures, her work serves as a continuation of the tradition of Pakistani doll making into the practice of contemporary sculpture.