Ayushi is a visual artist based in New Delhi whose work reflects a deep, evolving engagement with her inner world. She describes her art as emerging from “dreams or memories that seem to take on a life of their own,” while some ideas begin as “a single thread leading her into unknown creative territory.” Her visual language is marked by surreal compositions, faceless figures, and symbolic motifs like eyes and trees that act as extensions of human presence.
She begins each piece by “writing about the idea at length, letting the thought expand and settle,” then sketches shapes and textures, allowing the process to be “fluid and intuitive.” Over the years, Ayushi’s practice has grown from “raw, intuitive sketches” to more intricate bodies of work, moving between two core ideas: one, a “mythic narration” where a painting becomes a “portal—a specific moment surfacing from memory, dream, or a live experience,” and the other, quieter “interior portals” where rooms and thresholds become metaphors for psychological states.
Themes of transformation, femininity, and introspection recur throughout her practice. She explains that “the fluidity in the characters of my paintings has become the core structure” of her work, where “bodies carry the delicacy of an intimate interaction” and the colors “appear to be in conversation.” Her compositions evoke a mood of stillness and soft power, inviting viewers to enter “a quiet exploration of femininity grounded in introspection and rest.”

Hriday's work engages with themes of myth, confusion, chaos, and the realities unfolding around him. He often weaves humour into these ideas, allowing his process to remain playful and honest. For him, painting is a space for enjoyment, exploration, and self-understanding. Each artwork carries fragments of his life, his thoughts, emotions, and questions, resulting in paintings that feel simple, relatable, and open, inviting viewers to connect through their own experiences.
Hriday is a visual artist - art has been a part of his life since childhood. With an artist father, he grew up surrounded by colour and creative processes, making art feel instinctive and natural. He completed his BFA from Government Fine Arts College, Indore, grounding this early exposure in formal training. Born in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, and having grown up in cities such as Indore and Jabalpur, frequent relocations influenced the way he observes people and everyday life. These shifting environments continue to inform how he looks at the world and translates it into his work.

Maleeha Bukhari is an artist and researcher from Islamabad, Pakistan, who arrived at the studio by way of ancient civilisations. Trained in archaeology and cultural anthropology before turning to painting and clay, she carries the disposition of someone who has spent years learning to read what objects hold across centuries: the slow accumulation of meaning, the traces that refuse to disappear.
Her practice moves through myth, body, and material culture, drawn to the fault lines where belief takes shape in form. The divine, the feminine, the ancestral - these appear in her work not as resolved symbols but as fragments still mid-translation. Mehrgarh, one of the oldest known civilisations on earth, is a recurring gravitational pull, not invoked as historical backdrop, but approached as a living archive whose Neolithic material world she has sat with long enough to feel its strange proximity to now.
Maleeha works primarily in two registers, acrylic painting and unbaked terracotta. In paint, she builds through photomontage, pulling symbols and visual shards from mythologies and theologies across traditions, setting them against each other until something new stirs between them. In clay, she sculpts figures that resist the tidiness of archaeological reconstruction: unfamiliar, evocative forms that push against the clean certainties of historical narrative. The unbaked surface is deliberately unfinished, slightly vulnerable, closer to the earth than to the museum. Across both, the making is preceded by deep research, as though each work has to be excavated before it can be built.
She has exhibited widely across Pakistan and internationally; from Islamabad to Lahore, and from South Africa to Brazil, India, and the United States. Recent appearances include South Asian Playground at Mool Gallery in Delhi (2025), Partition is Imaginary at the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (2025), COP30 at Mabe Gallery in Brazil (2025), and a bsent matter(s) at the New Futures Arts Collaborative in South Africa (2025). In 2025, she received the AABP Practitioner Fellowship grant for Sacred Thresholds: Mandir–Masjid Entanglements in Sindh, and undertook residencies at the Islamabad Biennale and the New Futures Art Collective in Johannesburg.

Working primarily in painting, Darekar’s practice engages with the relationship between architecture, perception, and contemporary city life. His works examine how urban environments reshape ways of seeing, often drawing from the visual language of construction sites, glass buildings, reflective materials, and dense metropolitan structures. Through layered compositions and shifting spatial arrangements, he constructs images that move between structure and atmosphere, precision and instability.His practice is informed by an ongoing interest in the sensory and psychological experience of urban space - particularly how memory, movement, and perception become entangled within rapidly changing city environments. Rather than approaching the city as documentation, Darekar treats it as a perceptual condition, creating works that foreground ambiguity, fragmentation, and spatial tension.Manoj Darekar based in Pune, Maharashtra. He completed both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Painting from Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Fine Arts, Pune.

Beauty has long captivated human imagination, drawing us in with the promise of something desirable. Yet within this fascination lies a paradox: beauty can also obscure truths we would rather not confront. In her practice, Mrudhubhashini engages with this tension, often using visual allure as a way to invite viewers closer before revealing deeper questions about culture, power, and social conditioning.
Born in the Philippines, she grew up across India, Indonesia, and Australia before moving to the United States to pursue her education. She completed her undergraduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and her Master’s at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. After finishing her studies, she chose to return to India to further explore the cultural references and historical narratives that inform her work.
Mrudhubhashini’s practice frequently draws from Indian mythology, ornamentation, and material symbolism - elements that are deeply embedded within the cultural imagination. While these references form an important foundation, her work also questions the ideologies they carry, particularly those that shape ideas around gender, power, and tradition. By employing materials and colours historically associated with wealth and status such as gold, bronze, and copper - she both invokes and subverts their symbolic meaning.
Her creative process often begins with an intuitive spark: a resurfacing childhood memory, an observation from daily life, or a moment that leaves a lasting emotional impression. This instinctive beginning is followed by a process of inquiry, where she reflects on why a subject resonates and how its meanings extend into the present.
Material experimentation is central to her approach. She works fluidly across mediums, combining traditional materials such as oil paints and pastels with experimental ones like resin, silicone, and found objects, often pushing them beyond conventional use. Through this evolving practice, Mrudhubhashini creates works that balance beauty with discomfort, inviting viewers to linger, and question what lies beneath the surface.

Pranali Powar is a visual artist whose practice is rooted in personal experience, emotional memory and an evolving relationship with colour and form. Pranali Powar’s work draws directly from her lived experiences — moments of reflection, memory, and emotional shifts become the basis of her compositions. “The subject comes from something that has happened in my life,” she says, and these personal events become starting points for her canvas-based explorations. She often begins with an internal image or feeling and then builds the visual composition around it, carefully choosing colours and forms to reflect the emotion or idea.
Her process involves both intuition and structure: she starts with sketches and research, considers colour compatibility, and focuses on the flow of lines and shapes to communicate meaning. Acrylic is her preferred medium, and she works with both transparent and opaque layers to create depth and contrast. Over time, she has grown more attuned to what she calls “intangible art” — work that is not just visually expressive but emotionally resonant.
Born in Ichalkaranji, Maharashtra, she began her formal training in art at Lalitkala Mahavidyalaya, where she completed the A.T.D. program. In 2018, after moving to Kolhapur following her marriage, she found new support and encouragement from her family to continue her education. This led her to pursue a J.D. Art degree at Dalvi’s Art Institute, where she began to develop a deeper interest in creative and conceptual art.

Pratulya (b. 1994) is an artist whose work explores the raw inner landscapes of the human condition. Born in Lucknow, with roots in Uttarakhand, his life has been shaped by movement, both geographic and emotional. Leaving home at 17, early experiences of alienation, solitude, and a sense of not belonging became the emotional terrain from which his art would grow.
 About half a decade ago, Pratulya began navigating his own way through mediums and techniques through relentless experimentation—“I remember once mixing coconut oil with oil paints because I didn’t know about linseed oil.” Over time, his work grew into two distinct styles: one with oil paints and pastels, where he creates emotional, structured figures caught in a moment of thought and the other with pen drawings, which are more spontaneous and chaotic, filled with surreal shapes and expressive lines.
 At the core of his practice is an ongoing attempt to make sense of complex emotional states. “Most of my ideas begin with a feeling—something I observed, absorbed, or quietly carried,” he says. Rather than working from visual recall, he draws from emotional memory, choosing his materials based on how an idea “wants to live.”
Recurring themes of pain, anxiety, and the search for meaning pulse through his work, often through unsettling color choices and distorted figures. Whether working in a limited palette of 5 to 7 jarring hues or drawing crowded, alien dreamscapes in ink, his pieces invite viewers into a deeper confrontation with emotion.
Beyond his studio practice, Pratulya is active in the underground art scene—creating zines, books, and pop-up shows that merge visual art with writing and design, cultivating not just work, but community.

Riaz Ali is a Lahore-based Pakistani visual artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, performance and installation. His work examines the enduring psychological, cultural and political influence of colonialism in the subcontinent, exploring how colonial systems continue to shape contemporary identity in Pakistan. Drawing from local histories, archival research and community engagement, Ali investigates the ways power, memory and inherited structures remain embedded within everyday life.Working through symbolic imagery and carefully constructed visual frameworks, Ali reflects on themes of surveillance, regulation, extraction and social transformation. His practice brings together colonial iconography and South Asian miniature painting traditions, particularly the compositional devices of jadwal and hashiya, creating a dialogue between historical inheritance and present-day realities. Through painting, sculpture and installation, he questions how colonial histories persist within social systems, cultural understanding and collective consciousness.He has undertaken residencies at the New Futures Arts Collaborative in Johannesburg and Art Saraye in Lahore, and received the AABP Practitioners Fellowship Grant supporting research into the contested cultural and architectural histories of Sindh. Ali is a recipient of the Young Artist Award in Lahore and currently serves as a facilitator at Initiatives of Change USA. He holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts and a Master of Art and Design from Beaconhouse National University, where he also served as a teaching assistant.

Sabitha Kadannappally is a sculptor and visual artist based in Kerala whose practice is rooted in concept-driven explorations of how emotions manifest—both within ourselves and in our relationships with others. Making the art is secondary; the idea behind it comes first. Her work is meant to communicate a concept, not just exist as an object.
While her early years in art school were marked by an exploration of colour in sculpture, Sabitha’s focus shifted towards the end of her MFA, when she moved away from colour entirely. For her, colour risked diluting the clarity of the concept; a minimalistic approach became central to her visual language. This search for essence—where transformation begins and what it feels like—continues to guide her practice.
Primarily a sculptor, Sabitha has also ventured beyond the medium. During a residency in Switzerland, faced with the difficulty of sourcing familiar materials, she began a rare foray into drawing—opening another space for her ideas to take form.
Born in 1985 in Thalassery, Kerala, Sabitha came to art after working in other fields. She earned her BFA in Sculpture from the Government College of Fine Arts, Thrissur, in 2015, and her MFA in Sculpture from the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, in 2018. Since then, she has exhibited in solo and group shows, undertaken public projects and residencies, and taught workshops—including art sessions for children with special needs.

Sebin is a visual artist from Idukki, Kerala, whose practice moves between sculpture, installation, and environmental art. Growing up in a migrant farming community in the Western Ghats, his earliest encounters with art came from nature—tree branches that resembled animals or human figures, which he would collect, carve, and reimagine. This early connection with organic form, texture, and storytelling continues to shape the way he works with material.
Sebin works across both traditional and ephemeral mediums—bronze, wood, and ceramics sit alongside rust, moss, paper pulp, and decaying plant matter. He sees material not just as a formal choice, but as a carrier of cultural and historical memory. The use of impermanent or living elements becomes a way to reflect on what is lost, what can be held, and how transformation occurs over time. Through this, Sebin invites viewers to pause at the edge of things—between the material and the conceptual, permanence and impermanence, destruction and renewal. His sculptures show how the body relates to the land, and explore ideas of survival, memory, and decay. Some works look at how society and politics affect the body, while others focus on the small, often unnoticed connections between people and nature.
Sebin holds a BFA from the College of Fine Arts, Thrissur and an MFA from the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram.

Sruthi Sivakumar is a visual artist whose practice is rooted in an intimate, evolving relationship with nature. Working across mediums like handmade paper, mixed media, and gouache, she finds meaning in the small, often overlooked elements of the natural world—duckweed in a pond, the form of a dead insect, or the quiet transformation of a plant. These become portals into larger questions about life, impermanence, and interdependence.

Her process is layered and tactile, involving the creation of her own paper from recycled materials like plant fibers and even elephant dung. This act of making becomes inseparable from the artwork itself. Sruthi approaches each piece as a quiet inquiry—whether it’s an imagined pond ecosystem or a metaphorical reflection on parasitic plants—inviting viewers to consider how beauty, decay, and coexistence are constantly shaping the environments around and within us.
Originally from Kerala, Sruthi earned her BFA from Raja Ravi Varma College of Fine Arts, Mavelikara, and her MFA from RLV College of Music and Fine Arts, Thrippunithura. She has also undertaken a research residency at the Lalithakala Akademi. Her work is driven by exploration, play, and a desire to express the unsaid through the organic language of materials.

Steffi Elsy Xavier is a visual artist and wildlife conservationist whose practice moves between painting, writing, and ecological reflection. Currently based in Puducherry/ Auroville, where she has consciously relocated to build a life that allows both artistic and conservation work to coexist, Steffi creates images that bring together personal memory, feminine presence, and the fragile ecologies of South India.
Raised in Bengaluru at a time when the city still felt small and closely knit, Steffi found drawing early on as a natural form of refuge and expression. Her childhood was shaped by an acute awareness of questions surrounding identity, women’s autonomy, and social justice - conversations encouraged within her family. Alongside these influences were personal experiences that left lasting impressions. Being told as a child that she was “too dark” prompted a decisive act of reclamation: an embrace of darkness as both identity and aesthetic language. Today, the deep tonal palettes that dominate her paintings echo this early turning point, transforming darkness into a space of depth, dignity, and introspection.
Steffi’s path to becoming a full-time artist unfolded gradually. After completing a Master’s degree in Mass Communication, where she focused on filmmaking and storytelling centred on women’s lives, she worked in the development sector and later in wildlife conservation. Through these shifts, drawing remained a constant practice. During the CAA protests and the COVID-19 lockdown, she began sharing her work online. The response was immediate and organic: her images circulated through independent pages and digital platforms, leading to collaborations with fashion initiatives, commissions, and eventually the transition into a professional art practice.
Central to Steffi’s work is the inseparable relationship between image and text. Each painting is accompanied by a short written reflection that functions not as an explanatory caption but as an extension of the artwork itself. Through these brief fragments of writing, she invites viewers into the emotional and conceptual space from which the work emerges, using language that remains deliberately simple and accessible.

Surabhi, is a sculptor and ceramic artist whose practice emerges from close observation of everyday life. Working primarily with clay and locally available materials, she hand-builds forms that reflect the textures, moods, and quiet rhythms of her surroundings.
Surabhi’s process is rooted in simplicity, influenced by the storytelling of Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, whose writing inspires her pursuit of an unadorned yet deeply detailed visual language. Her sculptures often take the form of relief—part journal, part structure—where subtle contrasts and minimal interventions carry emotional and spatial weight.
Her miniature works map an internal landscape, distilling memory and perception into elemental forms - turning the gaze inward, using sculpture to explore questions of existence, ambiguity, and presence.
Surabhi earned her BFA in Sculpture from the Government College of Fine Arts, Thrissur (2019), and completed her MFA in Design (Ceramic and Glass) from Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan (2022).

Vanessa Meister is a Swiss designer, illustrator and creative consultant based in Kochi, India, Her work moves fluidly across graphic design, illustration and creative consultancy, recognisable for its bold use of colour and an unhurried back-and-forth between analog mark-making and digital technique. The practice is organised through evolving collections - ANSWER, BEACH and WOMAN - that travel between formats and scales: paper cuttings, murals, large canvases, hand-tufted rugs, card games and printed objects. Vanessa's process is intuitive and observational, grounded in a long interest in visual storytelling and in how everyday images shape the worlds we live with.Selected projects include a forthcoming exhibition at the Museum of Ethnography of Geneva (2026–2027); the Creatures rug collection with Cherthala-based manufacturer Neytt (2025); an architectural illustration series for One Kochi (2025); poster and visual identity for Alliance Française (2024); the WOMAN exhibition at David Hall, Fort Kochi (January 2024) and a colouring book for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2022). Alongside her studio practice, she teaches Design Thinking, most recently in schools with the World Design Council (2025) — and runs workshops on structured creative processes. She works between India and Switzerland. She trained at ECAL (École Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne), graduating with a Bachelor in Industrial Design in 2003, and began her career in fashion before establishing her independent practice in Kerala.