The Open Studio / Vatsal Tiwari
Vatsal Tiwari
पाँत Size: 72” x 30” Medium: Mix media on canvas 2026
Bodies heaped like warm stones while the grass keeps growing
Backs like river stones, warm from a long afternoon.
An elbow rests where a neck should be.
A hand closes on something it cannot name.
Ochre, rust, a thin green bruise of light.
No one lifts a face.
Below them the grass keeps its own count,
pressed flat and rising anyway.
The work
In पाँत, Vatsal Tiwari paints a long row of bodies pressed together. Limbs fold over backs. Hands grip arms and knees. Tiwari builds the surface with print, ink, acrylic and charcoal on canvas. Soft layers of ochre, rust and pale green let the figures melt into one another, so they look almost like stones. Grass grows along the lower edge. In his paintings, grass stands for what is stepped on and still keeps growing. Tiwari works in Delhi and is from the College of Art, New Delhi.
In the artist’s words
“I am drawn to bodily gestures: figures mingling, interacting, withdrawing or existing together within intimate and private spaces. Grass has emerged as a recurring metaphor. Often overlooked, stepped upon, crushed and disturbed, it continues to grow quietly. For me, grass carries memory like the body, bearing traces of what has passed over it while continuing to inhabit the present.”
- Theme
- Bodies, memory and endurance
- Material
- Print, ink, acrylic and charcoal on canvas
- Size
- 186.88 × 76.2 cm
- Year
- 2026
- Edition
- 1 of 1
- Framed
- No
- About the artist
- College of Art New Delhi
- From
- Delhi
- Code
- RC-371
