The Raconteur · Kalyani Kalakriti Foundation
The Raconteur Catalogue
Original works by the artists we have published. 40 works by 6 artists.
Before you turn the page
Every artist in this book has been in The Raconteur. You may have read about the clay that cracks, the cow on the street, the room with no one in it. Here are the works themselves.
New artists join every Monday with their issue. A work stays for a year or until it finds a home.
Prices are set by the artists and shared on request. Tap Ask for the price under any work, or message us on WhatsApp. Our team calls you within a working day, checks everything with the artist and handles the payment, packing and delivery.
In this book
The artists
Featured in Issue 2
Shakibul Islam
First Year Out · Painting. His painting fell and tore. His friends helped him mend it. He kept the scar.
Shakibul Islam
Queer as folk
Black swans, seahorse fathers and a crowd with nothing to hide
Grey people stand at the left edge, still as old photographs.
Then the colour starts: a river of orange bodies, a disco ball, a dancer in a white skirt.
A man lies on the green grass with small dolls in his hands.
Two black swans bend their necks toward each other.
Purple orchids open wider than faces.
Gold light pours over a goddess and her crowd.
No one here is asking to be forgiven.
Shakibul Islam paints Queer as Folk in nine days. He works eighteen to twenty hours a day in a corridor of the architecture building at his college in Mumbai. The diptych is a celebration. Nobody hides here. People dance, bathe and embrace among black swans, seahorses and lilies. Black swans often pair with partners of the same sex. Seahorse fathers carry the young. Islam paints them as family, not as decoration. Like a temple mural, the canvas has no single centre.
Oil on canvas (diptych) · 213.36 × 487.68 cm · 2026
Theme Queer life and nature
RC-644
Shakibul Islam
Fighting zone
A railway track runs through a garden where no one is judged
A washroom sign glows above a red room.
A yellow horse and a pink one push out of the dark.
Blue men stand in a line beside the railway track.
The tangerine opens, full of small bodies.
On the second panel the corn rises into a lilac sky.
Pink figures lie around it in rings.
The colour stings the eyes. Stay with it.
Shakibul Islam paints the places where queer people meet without being judged: public washrooms, thickets and the bushes beside railway lines. Homophobia pushes them there. For him this painting is about survival. A tangerine and an ear of corn stand in for the body. Nature, he says, has never discriminated in what it creates. When the finished corn panel falls and tears, his batchmates mend it with gesso and strips of canvas. Islam paints that part again. He does not hide the repair.
Oil on canvas · 167.64 × 365.76 cm · 2026
Theme Queer survival and refuge
RC-651
Shakibul Islam
Waiting
A clock on the table, a bare body at the door
White petals bend toward the cloth, tired of standing.
The gold clock leans on the stripes and counts the hours.
Smoke curls inside the cage where a bird should be.
Across the dark room a door spills orange light.
A bare back faces it. The cat looks up and waits too.
On the table a green leaf lies still, holding its breath.
Waiting is a large oil painting from 2023 by Shakibul Islam. A table holds white flowers, a gold clock, a birdcage and an orange book with a Bengali title. Behind it, in a warm doorway, a nude figure stands with its back to us. A cat looks up at the figure. Islam grew up in Kolkata. There he saw queer bodies celebrated in ritual and mocked in daily life. In his paintings the nude is not a spectacle. It shows the body as a place of desire and choice.
Oil on canvas · 121.92 × 152.4 cm · 2023
Theme Waiting to be seen
RC-652
Shakibul Islam
Peacock in the garden
One white tail, falling like water toward its own pond
White feathers pour over warm stone like milk from a tipped jug.
Pink roses crowd the urns, heavy as wet cloth.
Across the lawn another bird opens a white fan.
The pond takes the fan and turns it upside down.
Under the trees the light is green and slow.
No one hurries in this garden. Even the tail takes its time.
Shakibul Islam paints Peacock in the garden in oil on canvas. A white peacock stands on a low stone wall. Its long tail falls in soft white strokes almost to the water. Behind it, a second white peacock opens its fan on the grass. The pond holds its reflection. Pink roses spill from stone urns. A pavilion with a rose-coloured dome stands among the trees. Islam is a painter from Kolkata. He works mostly in oil, acrylic and gouache. He trained at Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai.
Oil on canvas · 45.72 × 30.48 cm · 2025
Theme Stillness in a garden
RC-653
Shakibul Islam
Elephanta cave
Old stone pillars watch a garden that refuses to stay small
Cream pillars hold up a hill that is mostly moss.
The path to the dark doorways is dry and quiet.
Then the purple climbs, spike after spike, like bells stacked on a stick.
A flower the size of a cabbage turns teal at every petal tip.
Leaves split open like hands.
Under all of it, red, still warm from somewhere.
Elephanta cave is a small oil painting on canvas by Shakibul Islam, made in 2025. Islam works in Mumbai. The cave sits high on a green hill. Its pale pillars stand in a row over a dusty path. Below them the flowers take over. Purple spikes, wide leaves and cream blossoms fill more than half of the canvas. Patches of red glow between the stems. Islam uses the brightest colours he can, on purpose. He wants the eye to stay with them and find their beauty.
Oil on canvas · 45.72 × 30.42 cm · 2025
Theme Old stone, new bloom
RC-654
Shakibul Islam
Drying clothes
The day's washing, hung out under big banana leaves
Morning has already passed through these cloths.
Yellow hangs heavy like a field of straw, still holding water.
The green check catches the sun the banana leaves let through.
Red brick, warm as a stove, takes the weight without complaint.
A wooden plank leans at the door, striped with shadow.
Above, the leaves split and fan, wider than any roof.
By evening someone will fold all this and carry it in.
Drying clothes dates from 2021. Shakibul Islam paints it in watercolour on handmade paper, 38.1 × 27.94 cm. A low brick hut sits under a sloping tiled roof. Cloths hang over its edge to dry: cream with a red border, a yellow one, a green check and a deep pink with dark spots. Banana leaves and sky are soft and wet. The hut is drawn with firm dark lines. Today Islam works mostly in oil, acrylic and gouache. This small watercolour shows a quieter side of his hand.
Watercolour on handmade paper · 38.1 × 27.94 cm · 2021
Theme Everyday life at home
RC-655
Shakibul Islam
Foliage
A wire fence, nearly swallowed by leaves that refuse to match
Green on green on green. Still no two leaves agree.
A fern opens its fingers over a wire fence.
Heart-shaped leaves climb the trunk without asking.
Pink flowers turn their faces up through the dark middle.
The sky comes in only in small pale pieces.
What was built to keep things out is slowly being held.
Shakibul Islam makes this watercolour in 2021. Fern fronds, climbing plants and pink five-petalled flowers fill the whole sheet. Behind them a wire fence and tree trunks show through. Small pieces of pale sky appear between the leaves. Islam gives each leaf its own edge, vein and shine. There is no single centre. His name and the year sit in the lower right corner. Today he works mostly in oil, acrylic and gouache. Nature stays close to his work. He says nature has never discriminated in what it creates.
Watercolour on paper · 27.94 × 38.1 cm · 2021
Theme Wild green growth
RC-656
Shakibul Islam
Blue
A blue wall, a mound of earth, a man walking past
The wall is the blue of washing water left in a bucket.
A white cloth and a blue cloth hang still in the heat.
The earth is piled high, soft as flour.
Banana leaves open like hands above the roof.
A man walks barefoot through green shade with a dark vessel at his side.
The sky is only paper, left alone.
Blue is a watercolour on paper from 2021. It measures 38.1 × 27.94 cm. Shakibul Islam paints a small hut with a tiled roof under tall trees and banana leaves. Its wall is a cool, clear blue. Cloth hangs along the side to dry. A mound of earth rises in front. A barefoot man walks past it with a dark round vessel. The white paper is left open in the sky. Islam works mostly in oil, acrylic and gouache. Here his colour is soft and still.
Watercolour on paper · 38.1 × 27.94 cm · 2021
Theme A home among trees
RC-657
Shakibul Islam
Fishtingzone
The corn fell and tore. His friends mended it from behind
A violet sky. A railway bends through green grass.
Blue men stand in a line along the track, waiting.
A tangerine opens. Every segment holds small bodies.
A horse burns yellow. A bull glows pink.
On the right, pink figures lie in rings around a tall gold corn.
The colours are so bright the eye wants to leave.
Stay. Look again.
Fishtingzone is a painting in two panels about survival. Because of homophobia, queer people in many cities find their own meeting places. These are public washrooms, thickets and the bushes beside railway lines. Shakibul Islam paints those places here. A tangerine and an ear of corn stand in for the body. The corn panel once fell in the studio and tore through the middle. His batchmates give their own materials. They join the tear from behind with strips of canvas and gesso. Islam paints that part again and keeps the repair in view.
Oil on canvas (diptych) · 142.24 × 365.76 cm · 2026
Theme Queer survival and care
RC-643
Shakibul Islam
Roommates 2
A quiet night at home, with a hippo floating overhead
Turquoise skin against a purple night full of white specks.
Two bodies, bent knees, a plastic bottle held loosely.
A hand reaches out with something small and orange between the fingers.
Above them a hippo turns over, mouth open, in no hurry.
A pale horse twists in the dark like smoke.
Nobody here is looking away.
Roommates 2 is a small oil painting by Shakibul Islam. Two nude men sit close on a dark floor. One reaches towards the other's hand. Around them float animals: a twisting horse-like creature, a hippo and a striped shell. Islam is researching queerness beyond the human, in nature and other living beings. He uses bright colour on purpose. Many people find it hard to look at fluorescent colour for long. He has seen people look away from queer lives in the same way.
Oil on canvas · 39.37 × 76.2 cm · 2026
Theme Queer domestic intimacy
RC-645
Shakibul Islam
Comfort
Two faces so close the colour cannot keep them apart
Two cheeks meet and the paint turns pink where they touch.
One face rests with its eyes shut. The other keeps watch.
Green shadows run along a nose, a lip, a jaw.
Around them, branches of orange and turquoise grow like coral in warm water.
Small and yellow, two figures dance below their chins.
Far off, a purple crowd stands under arches, too far away to reach them.
Two faces press cheek to cheek at the centre of Comfort. One face has closed eyes. The other has its eyes open. Around them, shapes like coral and branches grow in red, yellow, turquoise and purple. Shakibul Islam uses colour that is hard to look at for long. Some people look away from queer lives in the same way, he says. He often starts on a red ground with pink, lime and blue in acrylic. Then he paints over it in oil, so the colour glows.
Oil on canvas · 91.44 × 142.24 cm · 2025
Theme Queer intimacy and comfort
RC-646
Shakibul Islam
Mayapur
A man rises from a rainbow flower, arms open to the dark
Red runs under everything, like a floor that is still warm.
A man sits in a flower of rainbow petals and lifts both arms.
Above him a ring of pink and green lights turns like a festival gate.
Three women lean on a lattice rail and look back over their shoulders.
Lime bodies glow, tied together by long orange threads.
In the far window a white dome waits under deep blue.
Shakibul Islam paints Mayapur in acrylic on a square canvas. Nude figures fill a ground of red, green and black. A bearded man raises his arms from a flower of rainbow petals. Glowing yellow figures are joined by long orange cords. Islam uses the brightest colours he can on purpose. Many people cannot look at fluorescent colour for long, he says. He has seen people look away from queer people in the same way. He wants viewers to stay with the discomfort and find the beauty in it.
Acrylic on canvas · 142.24 × 142.24 cm · 2025
Theme Queer bodies and visibility
RC-647
Shakibul Islam
Maddox square
Behind the green railing, bodies rest without hiding
Red soaks the ground like a carpet that never dries.
Green drips fall behind the bodies like rain on a window.
A man turns his back to us with a red flower open on his shoulder.
Two yellow lovers fold into each other and do not look up.
A small green dog lifts its face to the music.
The railing curls but it does not close.
Maddox Square is a large square painting in acrylic on canvas from 2023. Shakibul Islam grew up in Kolkata and did his post-graduation at Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. Here nude figures sit, stand and embrace on a deep red ground. A lime green railing curls in from the left. Islam uses the brightest colours he can on purpose. Many people look away from fluorescent colour. He has seen people look away from queer people in the same way. He wants you to stay and look.
Acrylic on canvas · 121.92 × 121.92 cm · 2023
Theme Queer bodies without hiding
RC-648
Shakibul Islam
Eden Gardens 1
Three bodies hold each other while a dark figure watches
The floor is red and warm under bare knees.
Gold lines turn and turn behind them, a thumbprint the size of a wall.
One body kneels. One bends over him like a roof.
Hands rest on heads with no hurry.
Blue shapes grow at the edges like coral.
Far back, a dark man stands and does not look away.
The colour stings. Stay.
Eden Gardens 1 is oil on canvas, 121.92 × 91.44 cm. Shakibul Islam painted it in 2025. He studied at Sir J. J. School of Art, Architecture and Design, Mumbai. A nude man kneels on a red floor. Another figure bends over his back. A third face leans in close. A dark figure stands alone and watches. Islam uses the brightest colours he can. People look away from bright colour, he says. He has seen them look away from queer people in the same way.
Oil on canvas · 121.92 × 91.44 cm · 2025
Theme Queer love under watch
RC-649
Shakibul Islam
Eden Gardens 2
Fire at their feet. Faces in the leaves. They hold on anyway
Yellow lines crawl over the green like whispers that grew faces.
The ground is a cold blue sea and it is on fire.
Two bodies lean into one another, skin warm as baked clay.
A hand lifts a small brown fruit and does not let it go.
Below, white clouds sit like quiet sheep.
The colour is loud. Stay with it.
Eden Gardens 2 is an oil painting on canvas made in 2025 by Shakibul Islam. Two nude figures hold each other in a garden. One lifts a round fruit. Flames rise from the blue ground. Faces drawn in yellow lines watch from the green behind. Islam often paints the body nude so it carries no social markers. He uses the brightest colours on purpose. Many people look away from bright colour. He has seen people look away from queer lives in the same way.
Oil on canvas · 121.92 × 91.44 cm · 2025
Theme Desire under watching eyes
RC-650
Featured in Issue 2
Pranjal Saini
The Long View. An animation film designer from Delhi and one of the four who chose Edition One. He draws the people around him, then makes them move.
Pranjal Saini
A Daily Commute
One hand holds the rail. The other gathers what fell
Rust-red legs stand like a forest that never moves.
Above them, a yellow rail and three yellow loops.
One loop is taken by a grey fist.
The man below sits low on white, folded small.
His fingers spread over little yellow pieces, bright as the rail.
The same colour holds him up and lies at his feet.
Pranjal Saini is an animation film designer from Delhi. He draws the people around him. Then he makes them move. His subjects are workers, crowds and the cost of a day's labour. In A Daily Commute he paints in acrylic on canvas. A man sits on the floor of a crowded carriage. One hand grips a yellow strap. The other reaches for small yellow shapes on the floor. Behind him stands a wall of legs and feet. Saini teaches Applied Art at the College of Art in Delhi.
Acrylic on canvas · 61 × 76 cm · 2023
Theme Labour and daily crowds
RC-5653
Featured in Issue 2
Tanishq Pratap Singh
The Studio · Painting. He paints the cows on his street in Rudrapur with silk, pearls and lily petals. And he asks a lot of questions.
Tanishq Pratap Singh
Imbroglio
Crystals in her hair cannot lift her lowered head
A grey head bends toward the bottom of the canvas.
The lashes are long and the eye stays closed.
Hair rises like smoke and holds small points of light.
A black knot of charcoal sits in the curls.
Paint runs down from the neck in thin lines.
A little blue gathers below like cold water.
One dry petal drifts away on the pale cloth.
In Imbroglio a street cow from Rudrapur lowers her head. Tanishq Pratap Singh photographs the cows on his street with his phone. Then he sketches them by hand. Here he works in charcoal, inks and oil on canvas. He adds dried lily petals from his garden and Swarovski crystals. He is testing how shiny crystals can hide or overpower the hard facts of daily life. The cow still asks his quiet question. Are we all okay?
Charcoal, inks, oil, Swarovski crystals and dried lily petals on canvas · 71 × 50 × 2 cm · 2026
Theme Endurance and concealment
RC-713
Tanishq Pratap Singh
Male Gaze
A braid swings where a tail should be
Rust water spreads across the paper like a stain that will not dry.
She turns her back to us. Gold hangs from her braid.
A cloth the colour of turmeric slips from her shoulder.
Red hair lifts and curls as if in a hot wind.
Her legs twist. Her shadow runs long and violet to the edge.
We keep looking. She keeps walking.
In Rudrapur, Tanishq Pratap Singh notices that women and cows walk down the same streets with the same grace. In Male Gaze he joins the two. A long braid runs down the cow's back like a tail. Singh says the work is not only about gender. The gaze belongs to all of us. It is how a society decides a body should look. He paints in watercolour on Wasli, a handmade paper first made in Jaipur. The paper gives him a sense of labour and endurance.
Watercolour on Wasli paper · 76 × 60 × 0.5 cm · 2026
Theme How bodies are watched
RC-707
Tanishq Pratap Singh
Untitled
A braid that swings like a tail
A braid falls the whole length of the page, dark as wet bark.
A gold star pins it at the top. A silver drop hangs below.
Near the crown a stain of coral and rose spreads like tea through cloth.
Loose hairs curl away from the plait. Pale wisps break off and drift.
At the tip another small stone catches the light.
Everything shines. Something is still held tight.
Tanishq Pratap Singh lives and works in Rudrapur in Uttarakhand. On his street he sees women and cows walk with the same grace. A braid swings like a tail. Here one long braid hangs down the length of the work. Loose hairs and pale wisps slip out of it. A gold jewel sits at the top. Singh works from photographs on his phone and sketches in his own hand. He is asking how shining things like crystals can cover the hard facts of daily life.
Mixed media: inks and charcoal on canvas · 66 × 96 × 2 cm · 2026
Theme Grace and endurance
RC-708
Tanishq Pratap Singh
No faith
Under a violet sky she closes her eyes and waits
Magenta clouds press down on the slope of her back.
A thin red light runs along her nose and one short horn.
Her eyes are half closed, heavy, not asleep.
An ear hangs low like a petal near the end of its week.
At the edge of the sky a pink leaf lifts away.
Under the paint, the cloth of working trousers keeps its weave.
A street cow fills this painting by Tanishq Pratap Singh. He lives and works in Rudrapur in Uttarakhand, where cows stand between the traffic and the shops. He photographs them on his phone and draws them in his own hand. Then he chooses a surface to suit the feeling of the work. Here he paints in acrylic on denim. Singh sees something of himself in these animals. They stand in the open and endure a world they did not make.
Acrylic on denim · 60 × 45 × 2 cm · 2026
Theme Endurance on the street
RC-709
Tanishq Pratap Singh
Persistence
The paint runs down. The red folds hold on
A circle of red, held up like a plate to the light.
Folds of rose and rust curl over one another, petal over petal.
Thin gold threads cross them like cracks in old glaze.
On the left the colour gives way and runs down in long stripes.
Pale canvas shows at the edges, cool as morning.
Nothing here stops moving. Nothing here lets go.
Persistence is painted in oil and inks on a round canvas, 60 centimetres across. Tanishq Pratap Singh lives and works in Rudrapur in Uttarakhand. He paints daily life that shows vulnerability, endurance and the need to keep adapting. His works grow from sketches, photographs and things he notices as he watches. Singh then chooses the materials to suit the feeling of each work. Here, folded red forms curl like petals. Thin gold lines run through them. Paint drips down the left side.
Oil and inks on circular canvas · 60 × 60 × 1 cm · 2026
Theme Endurance and vulnerability
RC-710
Tanishq Pratap Singh
Houseplant
Loved, admired and kept indoors, like a plant in a pot
Gold seeps down the silk like old rain on a wall.
Two lilies bend where her ears should be, soft and already folding.
Glass chandeliers hang from them, catching a light that is not there.
Her mouth meets the pot as if she drinks from it or grows from it.
A necklace sits on the pot's round belly, heavy with stones.
Under everything, thin roots look for somewhere to go.
Tanishq Pratap Singh lives in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, where cows stand between the traffic and the shops. Drawing lilies in his small garden, he sees that a cow's ear is about the size of a lily petal. In Houseplant the petals become ears. The head rises from a pot like a plant kept indoors, safe and cared for. Small chandeliers hang beside her. Singh paints on Chanderi, a fine silk with golden threads that he bought long before only because it shone.
Acrylic on Chanderi fabric stretched over canvas · 101 × 76 × 2 cm · 2026
Theme Protection and confinement
RC-711
Tanishq Pratap Singh
Untiled
Crystals shine brightest on the things we stop looking at
Pink folds over brown, like skin pressed against skin.
Black lines run through it, the way a rope marks a hide.
In the dark between, small crystals gather like frost on a night road.
One hollow stays shut, an eye that will not open.
The light finds the stones first.
Only later do you see what they rest on.
Tanishq Pratap Singh lives and works in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand. He paints the street cows he sees there, animals that endure without making trouble. Singh builds each work from photographs, sketches and collected observations. Then he chooses materials for what the work needs. On this small canvas, soft folds of pink, brown and black press close together. Swarovski crystals sit on the dark paint in small clusters. Singh wants to see how a shiny, seductive material can cover up or overpower hard daily life. His work asks, "are we all okay?"
Charcoal, inks, oil and Swarovski crystals on canvas · 30 × 30 × 2 cm · 2026
Theme Beauty hiding endurance
RC-712
Featured in Issue 1
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
The Studio · Painting. He paints the broken idols that wash up after visarjan and asks a hard question: do we believe or do we only follow?
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
Peace
Two pale figures fight in a corner as a blue dove rises
Grey comes in from every side like smoke after rain.
A blue bird pushes up from a black bowl with its wings scratched in thin lines.
Above it a small box holds a strip of rainbow, folded shut.
A row of white waves curls along a wall that goes nowhere.
Down in the dark corner two thin white figures lean into each other.
From here you cannot tell if they hold or strike.
Aniket Dharmendra Varma is an MFA Painting student at Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. He paints in oil, layer by layer. He does not draw a plan first. His paintings begin with what he has lived through that week. Peace shows both war and peace. Doves fly through it. Two figures attack each other. They could be anyone. “In the end, we all belong to the same race,” Varma writes. “That is enough.” The canvas is 76 × 91 cm.
Oil on canvas · 30 × 36 in · 2026
Theme War and peace together
RC-3292
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
Our Home
A grey cat, a yellow wall and two faiths under one roof
A grey cat stands on a dark fish in a room of cold blue light.
Its long tail crosses the line and turns pink in the yellow.
On that side the paint is thick as dried turmeric.
A pale leaf shape holds red marks like old petals.
Letters are pressed into the colour, only half read.
Two colours share one wall and do not fight.
Our Home is a painting about the home of Aniket Dharmendra Varma's family. Varma comes from a Hindu family. After a very hard time, his mother comes to believe in Jesus Christ. His father does not share her belief. Yet today there is peace in their home. Varma makes the work as three canvases that form one picture. Some forms stand for his mother and his father, their work and their beliefs. He paints himself there too, asleep in the middle panel.
Acrylic on canvas, three panels · 24 × 95 in overall · 2026
Theme Faith and family peace
RC-3291
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
Divine Unity
Two faiths, one home and a white elephant fast asleep
A white elephant folds its legs and sleeps on grey ground.
A pink lotus bends from its trunk as if it is tired too.
Behind it a blue shape lies down with its head on a golden coil.
Brown lines spread under the body like a soft dark wave.
High in the corner blue, yellow and red circles touch.
Where they meet a small star of two triangles keeps quiet watch.
Aniket Dharmendra Varma grew up in a Hindu family. After a hard time at home his mother came to believe in Jesus Christ. His father does not share her faith. Yet today there is peace in their home. Divine Unity comes from his questions about faith. A white elephant sleeps with a lotus in its trunk. Three circles of blue, yellow and red overlap above it. It is acrylic on canvas, about 122 × 183 cm. Varma studies for his MFA in Painting at Sir J.J. School of Art.
Acrylic on canvas · 121.92 × 182.88 × 2.5 cm · 2026
Theme Faith and coexistence
RC-635
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
Gagan or sagar ke beech
A child, a bird and a blue face hang in the dark
Night comes down from the top of the canvas. A thin grey line keeps the sky from the ground.
A blue face looks out from a torn edge of light.
An orange child stands still, made of pencil lines and warm paint.
A strip of yellow water holds one green wave.
Below, a pale bird lies on its side with its eye still open.
Everything waits between the high dark and the low dark.
Aniket Dharmendra Varma paints from daily life and memory, not from a fixed theme. Varma studies for his MFA in Painting at Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. His work asks questions about faith that began in his own home. The square canvas is painted in acrylic. A strip of blue sky sits above a black ground. Shapes float in the dark: a blue face, an orange child drawn in pencil, a patch of yellow and green. Below lies a large grey white bird with a dark eye.
Acrylic on canvas · 91.44 × 91.44 × 2.5 cm · 2025
Theme Memory and belief
RC-636
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
Inner landscapes
Every line carries a feeling, some planned and some not
A tower of grey and red leans into a pale yellow sky.
A dark oval sits on the cream form like a seed full of small cells.
Thin marks climb up the middle, fine as grass after rain.
In the blue on the right, a sunset hides behind glass.
Brown waves roll along the bottom and never break.
Every line here is someone thinking.
Aniket Dharmendra Varma is studying for his MFA in Painting at Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. In Inner landscapes he uses line to show human feelings and behaviour. Some lines come from a plan. Others come from a less awake part of the mind. A grey drawing sits beside the painting in the image. It holds the same shapes: a tall tower, a dark round form, rows of waves. In oil, Varma builds these shapes in layers of colour.
Oil on canvas · 152.4 × 91.44 × 2.5 cm · 2026
Theme Feeling through line
RC-637
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
Just a Ritual
He prays with joined hands as pale water rises around him
Hands pressed flat, a man leans into the dark.
White waves climb his shirt and spill below him like a cloth over an altar.
Small yellow marks swim in that pale water.
A thin white line cuts the air, as if glass has cracked.
Deep red closes in from the corners.
At the bottom a red fan opens. The prayer is not finished.
A man stands with his hands pressed together in prayer. White wavy lines run over his shirt and down the canvas like water. Aniket Dharmendra Varma paints in oil layer by layer. He does not draw a plan first. Each painting begins with something he has lived through. He grew up in a Hindu family. Later his mother came to believe in Jesus Christ. In this work Varma asks about the rituals he has seen since childhood. Does he believe or does he only follow?
Oil on canvas · 182.88 × 91.44 × 2.5 cm · 2026
Theme Faith and ritual
RC-638
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
Memory
Some memories are kept in jars, sealed and numbered
A red lid, numbered like a drawer in a museum.
Inside, dark stones press their faces to the glass.
Across the floor lies a pale stripe of window light, cut into bars.
A mauve cloth rests over something the shape of a sleeper.
Under the bed, small jars wait in rows.
On the wall a gold garland glints on a frame.
Everything is kept. Nothing is opened.
A large glass jar stands in a dim room. It is full of dark stones. Its red lid carries a number, 003. Behind it, a cloth covers a shape on a bed. Aniket Dharmendra Varma paints in oil, layer by layer. He does not draw a plan first. "The daily experiences became the sketch," he says, "and I painted it." His work grows from memories of the past and the present. Varma trained in classical painting at Sir J.J. School of Art, where he now studies for his MFA.
Oil on canvas · 91.44 × 97.44 × 2.5 cm · 2025
Theme Memory and keeping
RC-639
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
Landscape
A pink dress, a dark coat and a hill of stones
A green hill, grey stones scattered across it like seeds.
A small figure in pink and plum walks down the path.
A man in a dark coat sits on the low wall and waits.
Yellow leaves glow at the left edge.
The paint stands up thick, each stroke left where the brush lifted.
An ordinary afternoon, kept small enough to hold in two hands.
Aniket Dharmendra Varma did his BFA in Drawing and Painting at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. He now studies there for his MFA in Painting. His training is classical. It includes portraits, composition and outdoor studies. Landscape is a small acrylic painting, only 15 × 20 cm. A figure in pink walks on a path. A man in a dark coat sits on a low wall. Varma says nature has always moved him to try new ways of painting. Some are fully spontaneous. Some are planned.
Acrylic · 15 × 20 × 1.5 cm · 2026
Theme Figures in nature
RC-641
Aniket Dharmendra Varma
Mountain
A whole mountain, held in a space just 20 centimetres wide
Snow sits in the cracks of brown rock like spilled milk.
On the left a cliff wears moss green and slate.
The sky is not finished. White is dragged across blue with a dry brush.
Dark marks run down the slope like birds or stones.
At the bottom, small strokes of grass stand in the cold.
The light comes from somewhere behind the cloud.
Aniket Dharmendra Varma studies painting at Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. His training there includes long days of painting outdoors. In Mountain he works small, on a surface just 15 × 20 cm. Snow and dark rock fill the lower half. A cool blue sky moves above them. Varma lays the gouache on thick in places and thin in others. The brush marks stay open and quick. For Varma, nature is a constant pull. He paints it in ways that are sometimes free and sometimes planned.
Gouache and watercolour · 15 × 20 × 1.5 cm · 2026
Theme Mountain light and weather
RC-642
Featured in Issue 1
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi
First Year Out · Drawing. She draws the rooms of her home in charcoal. No one is in them, yet every room shows that someone lives there.
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi
Objects and Spaces I
A chair, its long shadow and nobody in the room
A dark post stands at the edge of the room.
Behind it a chair holds its cushion, square and patient.
Light comes in at a slant and lies grey on the floor.
The other half is a wall, scratched and flaking white.
One pale line runs down it like a crack of afternoon.
Someone was here. The charcoal remembers the weight.
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi walks through her home with a camera. She photographs the rooms as they are. Nothing is tidied. She first paints from these photographs but stops halfway. The colour takes the silence away. So she draws in charcoal and pastel. Here two drawings meet at an uneven cut like two photographs laid side by side. A chair sits in one half. Its shadow falls across the floor. The work is part of her final series at Anant National University.
Charcoal and pastel on paper · 22 × 34 in · 2026
Theme Presence in absence
RC-3293
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi
Objects and Spaces II
An open door, a slant of light and nobody home
Grey dust rubbed into paper until it becomes a wall.
A door stands open on a dark that has no floor.
Light comes in at a slant and lies there, pale as chalk.
White flakes show through where the charcoal gave way.
No one is here.
Still the door was opened by a hand.
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi draws the rooms of her home. First she walks through the house with a camera and photographs each room as it is. Nothing is tidied. Here a doorway stands in a corner and a band of light falls across the wall. Joshi first tries to paint her photographs. Halfway through she stops. The colour takes away the silence. So she turns to charcoal. The drawing belongs to her final series at Anant National University.
Charcoal on paper · 22 × 34 in · 2026
Theme Presence in absence
RC-3294
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi
The space in between
The chair is empty but the room still remembers
A chair waits behind a dark post. Its cushion is still pressed.
Light comes in low and lies across the floor like a dropped sheet.
The shadow under the seat is darker than the room.
On the right the wall is grey and worn. In places it is scraped back to white.
One thin pale line runs down it like the gap of a door left open.
Someone sat here. Someone will come back.
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi draws the home she grew up in. First she walks through it with a camera. She looks at where things are placed and how light falls on the floor. Then she sets photographs side by side and turns them into large drawings. Here a chair sits behind a dark frame. Its shadow stretches across the floor. Beside it a pale surface is rubbed and scraped. Charcoal gives it lines and gaps. No one is in the room. Still it feels lived in.
Charcoal and pencil · 152.4 × 22 cm · 2026
Theme Presence in absence
RC-673
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi
Untitled
An open door, a band of light and nobody home
Light comes in sideways and lies across the wall like a long plank.
The door stands open. Inside it the dark is soft and thick.
Charcoal grey, then paler grey, then the white of paper breaking through.
Small flakes of light sit on the floor like spilled salt.
Someone left this door open.
The room is still waiting for them to come back.
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi draws the rooms of the home where she grew up. First she walks through it with a camera. She looks at where objects stand and how light falls on the floor. Then she turns her sketches into larger drawings. Here an open doorway stands beside a wall crossed by a wide band of light. No one is in the room. Charcoal and pencil add texture: lines, gaps and patterns. The drawing is from 2026. Joshi studied at Anant National University in Ahmedabad.
Charcoal and pencil on paper · 2026
Theme Presence without people
RC-674
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi
Silence
A slipper waits on the mat for the foot that left it
Light comes in past the curtain and lies down on the floor.
One slipper rests on the dark mat. Its strap still bends to a foot.
The door stands open. Its shadow leans out into the room.
Charcoal fills the corners, stroke over stroke.
Grey, then black, then the pale ground showing through.
Nobody speaks. Somebody was just here.
Nitya Bhaumik Joshi draws the home she grew up in. First she walks through it with a camera and photographs the rooms as they are. Then she sketches them and turns them into larger drawings. She starts by painting these photographs. Halfway through, she stops. The colour takes the silence away. So she chooses charcoal. In Silence she lays it on in strokes, layer over layer. No person appears here. Yet a slipper and an open door show that someone lives in this room.
Charcoal on canvas · 60 × 90 in · 2026
Theme Traces of presence
RC-675
Featured in Issue 1
Sushil Yadav
The Studio · Sculpture. He builds people out of terracotta, coil by coil, to ask what stays with us when a home is gone.
Sushil Yadav
Composition 2
A body that has not let go of the tree
Orange clay, pressed and pitted like bark that has not hardened yet.
One body or two, leaning into one shape, arms thrown out to the side.
Under their feet the branches end in round open holes.
The stump below is grey and green, turning blue at its tips.
Warm skin on old wood, held up by what it holds.
A soft grey room and no wind at all.
Sushil Yadav builds his people out of terracotta, coil by coil. Here a figure sits on an old tree stump. Roots wrap around its body. For Yadav these roots are not plants. They stand for the ties we cannot see. The work asks how much we need nature. It also asks how hard it is to stay close to it while everything around us changes. Yadav is in the final year of an MVA in Sculpture in Lucknow. The work is on the cover of Issue One.
Terracotta and wood · 24 × 10 in · 2026
Theme Holding on to nature
RC-3287
Sushil Yadav
Roots, Memories, Ruins, Reconstruction
A roof left unfinished on purpose, over people made of earth
Orange clay heaped like two small hills, scaled with the marks of fingers.
Out of the gap between them bodies climb and hold on.
One arm ends in an open mouth, a hollow pipe of earth.
A soot shadow sits on the right hill where the fire touched it.
Above, dark sticks crossed and tied: a roof that waits for its next pair of hands.
Grey light. Nothing finished. Everyone still holding.
In the village in Kushinagar district where Sushil Yadav grew up, mud houses soften in the rain and return to the soil. In this work Yadav builds human forms in terracotta, coil by coil. They rise out of broken ground and lean on each other. Above them stands a frame of bamboo sticks tied together. It is not finished. “The structure is incomplete on purpose,” he says, “because I see rebuilding as something that goes on.” He makes it in 2026, in the final year of his MVA.
Terracotta and bamboo sticks · 14 × 12 × 28 in · 2026
Theme Home, memory and rebuilding
RC-3288
Sushil Yadav
Entwined Roots
What holds us together can also hold us in
Pink-brown clay, pressed all over with small marks like fish scales.
Two rings sit one above the other, each with a round dark hole that looks back at you.
Thick coils loop through them, an arm, a root, a knot you cannot follow.
At the top the coils climb free and reach in three directions.
Grey smoke from the fire still rests on the clay.
Below, black stone. Behind, a white wall. The earth stands up on its own.
Sushil Yadav grew up in a village in Kushinagar district. There he watched mud houses break down in the rain and go back into the soil. He asks what stays when a home is gone. Yadav builds his figures out of terracotta, coil by coil. In Entwined Roots, bodies and roots wind through each other inside two rings of clay. You cannot tell where one person ends. The roots stand for the ties we cannot see. He is studying for an MVA in Sculpture in Lucknow.
Terracotta · 32 × 18 in · 2025
Theme Ties that hold us
RC-3289
How buying works
A person, not a cart.
Tell us which work you love. Our team calls you from +91 98880 48804 within one working day with the price and everything else you need: size, framing, packing and delivery.
You pay Kalyani Kalakriti Foundation. We pay the artist. Packing and delivery are charged at cost, on top of the price.
Kalyani Kalakriti Foundation is a non-profit. What it earns from the catalogue goes into a fund that helps student artists with grants, gallery rent and their places at art fairs, exhibitions and residencies.