“I cannot believe that Shoneize, my niece, first picked up a brush and painted on canvas just three years ago,” Javed Akhtar pauses before her painting Meri Baat Sun Lo (2025), a work rooted in childhood memories, at the preview of the ninth edition of Delhi Contemporary Art Week at Bikaner House. The showcase, on view till September 5, brings together six women-led Delhi galleries. Together, their presentations engage with questions of climate and ecology, identity, memory, place, belonging and lived experience, while moving across materials and mediums.
L-R: Shonezie Akhtar’s art; Tasneem Zakaria Mehta and Javed Akhtar
‘Presenting artists who challenge established material vocabularies’“At DCAW this year, we are bringing together artists who challenge established material vocabularies while remaining deeply attentive to the social, political and emotional world from which they emerge. The works are quite personal and experiential,” said Rasika Kajaria, founder of Exhibit 320. Its presentation moves across painting, drawing, textile, print, sculpture and mixed media, with artists exploring materiality through processes such as hand-cut and stitched brass wire and hand-woven Kota Doria.
Artist-sculptor Manav Gupta takes in Anupama Alias’ mixed-media artworks, which explore womanhood through the body
For Blueprint12, the body becomes a lens through which artists examine contemporary concerns. “Contemporary art is a reflection of society as it is,” said Mandiraa Lambba, whose gallery presents Ways of Being Seen, bringing together practices that look at the body through memory, identity, intimacy, vulnerability and resistance. Gallery Espace’s Presenting Abundance draws from miniature traditions while moving towards abstraction, using precision, ornamentation and material to reflect on memory, identity and emotion. Latitude 28’s Meridian brings together different geographies, generations, materials and methods to examine how we locate ourselves amid change. Vadehra Art Gallery’s A Geography of Tender Things considers place as a social, cultural, geographical and psychological experience.
Jaya Asokan
Shefali Somani of Shrine Empire, whose presentation looks at urbanisation, ecological crises, displacement, migration and identity politics, said, “Galleries are putting forward very interesting conversations through these artworks and artists. The presentation is centred around materiality, with artists working with textiles, Japanese linen, paper collage, fibreglass, charcoal, ink and even pastel on aluminium sheets.”
Clockwise: Nisha Singh, Samar Jodha and Gopi Gajwani; Waswo X. Waswo with Kanchan Chander; GR Iranna
‘Young collectors are doing their homework when it comes to art’For galleries, the changing audience is as interesting as the works on display. Younger collectors, they say, are entering the art market with greater awareness and increasingly making choices on their own terms. “Young collectors are actually quite savvy. They have done their homework,” says Roshini Vadehra, director of Vadehra Art Gallery. She said that while many may be new to acquiring art, they are not new to looking at it, thanks to the wealth of information available online. “They are not necessarily drawn to older artists or younger artists. It depends on what their story is and how they want to collect.”
Bhavna Kakar of Latitude 28 sees a similar shift. “They are looking for a story they resonate with,” she says, adding that younger buyers are willing to experiment and may discover an artist online before approaching a gallery. “They come with an open mind,” she notes.
Clockwise: Renu Modi, founder Gallery Espace, Roshini & Parul Vadehra, co-directors, Vadehra Art Gallery, Rasika Kajaria of Exhibit 320 and Bhavna Kakar, founder, Latitude 28
Collectors have been quite interested and excited about different materialities, as such pieces become conversation starters at home gatherings
Shefali Somani, founder, Shrine Empire
Yogesh Ramkrishna’s On The Command Of My Master is a chalk-painted carbon-fibre sculpture that explores the idea of authority
Artist Juhikadevi Bhanjdeo looking at her artwork Skin of Home: aal-dyed panel held together with safetypins
