If you think art is just pretty pictures on a wall, you haven’t seen the work of Arvind Sundar. This Coimbatore artist is about to make your brain work overtime. His new show, “Cosmos II – Chasing Infinity,” is not just an exhibition. It is a massive, philosophical dare. Arvind took the simplest, most familiar surface, a chessboard, and said, “This is actually the entire universe.”

We recently got the chance to talk with Arvind about this mind-bending concept and his work. Before the full interview comes out, we are giving you a sneak peek into the show that will make you look at a simple game of chess differently forever.

The show runs from October 31st to November 27th, with the opening happening on October 31st at 6 PM. Get ready to have your view of logic, mythology, and art completely turned upside down.

The World in 64 Squares

Why does a talented artist with a top-notch background choose something as simple as a chessboard? Because it is not simple at all, according to Arvind.

The chessboard is a grid. It stands for order, rules, and calculation. It is a perfect symbol for the cosmic order, the rules that hold the stars and galaxies in place. But within those 64 squares, the possibilities for moves are near-infinite. That tension, the small, defined space holding an endless world, is the central idea of the show.

Arvind sees the board as a microcosm, a tiny model of the ever-expanding universe. His art encourages us to stop and think about the great mysteries of existence, but he uses a language that feels comfortable and easy to grasp. As the writer Sandesh Awdan notes, Arvind wants to start a conversation about cosmology because its laws shape our daily lives just as much as politics and money do. 

This show is a daring attempt to prove that logic and imagination are not two different things. They are the twin forces that define both great art and existence itself.

Mixing Math and Myth

Arvind’s work is unique because he takes two things that seem like enemies and makes them work together: mathematics and mythology.

• Mathematics is the science part. It is our way of trying to measure the unmeasurable, to understand the huge numbers of the universe through logic and geometry. In the art, geometry is the skeleton, the exact lines and patterns that provide structure.
• The Mythology is the story part. It is how humans give emotional meaning to the universe, using gods, symbols, and old tales.

In Cosmos II, these two languages merge. The artist shows us that whether we are using an equation or telling a story about the gods, we are all chasing the same thing: to understand what lies beyond what we can see. Both math and myth are products of the same human quest.

Duality and Near-Infinity Made Real

Arvind’s pieces are not just paintings; they are sculptural thoughts. He uses materials like gold dust, marble, neem timber, and steel to make these huge, abstract ideas feel real and tangible.

Duality of the Kings and the Pawns

The concept of duality, the push and pull of two opposite forces, is everywhere in this exhibition.

• Cosmic Moves (1, 2, 3): In these striking circular pieces (ranging from 1 foot to 3 feet in diameter, the two Kings become the perfect metaphor for the forces of duality that animate the universe. Without the dynamic interplay of the two principal opponents, the cosmos, just like the game, would stop.
• Peedam: This artwork turns the chessboard into an altar. Here, the focus is on the Pawn. The Pawn embodies the tension of the cosmos better than any other piece. It is the weakest piece, but in the right circumstances, it is also the strongest, capable of becoming a Queen. This shows how life and death, position and movement are constantly at play.

The Near-Infinite in a Grain of Rice

Perhaps the most famous story connected to chess, often cited in Indian mythology, is the rice story. This is the idea that if you put one grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard, then double it for every square after that, you end up with a number of grains so massive it exceeds all the rice on Earth.

Arvind translated this amazing tale into the sculpture “Arthanareeshwara’s Game” (made from Neem Timber and brass. The sculpture visually shows this exponential growth. At the very peak of this rising geometric rhythm, he placed Ardhanārīśvara, the union of Shiva (the nominal cause) and Shakti (the primal force). This unity of King and Queen is what creates all the possibilities in the entire near-infinite world.

The Knight’s Poetry

The Knight is the rogue piece. It does not follow the straight lines of the King or Queen. It dances in an ‘L’ shape, moving where reason does not expect it to go. This makes it a perfect symbol for creativity and intuition.

The enormous piece, “Knight’s Kolam” (a set of 64 drawings), celebrates this movement. The artwork is a single path drawn by a Knight, but it represents the trillions of unique paths a Knight can take across the board. The artist shows us how, even inside a strict boundary, individuality and near-infinite possibilities thrive.

The Man Behind the Grid: Arvind Sundar’s Journey

Arvind Sundar (born 1993) is rooted in the language of geometry and mathematical systems. He has a serious pedigree that backs up the intellectual ambition of his art.

He received his MFA degree (Master of Fine Arts) in painting and drawing from the University of Cincinnati’s School of Art, USA, in 2018, where he was awarded the Best graduating student of the year. He also trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received the prestigious Wolstein travel fellowship, allowing him to study Renaissance art in Italy.

Arvind has been very busy. He has participated in over fifty exhibitions, showing his work globally, from the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) in Cincinnati to Art Dubai and the Busan Art Fair. He was recently an artist-in-residence at Hampi Art Labs and has had two major solo shows in Mumbai: Blueprints for Impossible Structures (2023) and Cosmos (2024).

He is now taking his strong practice in geometry and adding a new layer: mythology. This combination allows him to look at the minimal space of the chessboard and see the entire vast cosmos.

Exhibition Details

Chasing the Mystery

Arvind Sundar’s Cosmos II – Chasing Infinity is not art you just look at; it is art that forces you to think and engage in a dialogue about the mysteries of the cosmos. He is not interested in who wins the game. He wants us to play a different game, one where we unravel the mystery of existence. He is showing us that structure and creativity are not separate. The tension between the finite (the board) and the near-infinite (the possibilities) is what keeps us human, drives us to chase, and keeps us wondering.

Go see the show at Anupa Mehta Contemporary Art, Mumbai, from October 31st to November 27th. The full interview with Arvind Sundar, where he talks more about his work and the huge ideas behind it, will be coming soon!

The Indian International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi is set to host an exhibition titled “Weaving Water: Feminine Countercultures in Paint and Print.” Scheduled to run from October 30th to November 10th, 2025, the exhibition breaks the confines of typical displays of paintings and offers a more multi-sensory experience aimed at deconstructing the challenges faced by women in society. Under the able curation of Jyoti A. Kathpalia, the exhibition brings together the works of 15 eminent women artists, whose works are a collective visual response to the painful words of Padma Shri Ajeet Cour’s autobiography, Weaving Water. The fusion of multiple creative forms, like painting, sculpture, and literature, marks a very bold attempt by these artists to create a more equitable cultural fabric denoting the feminine experience. The exhibition explores what curator Jyoti A Kathpalia describes as the “search for an alternate, more equal world and the re-visioning of the feminine.”

The Thematic Spine

The dual metaphor of Water and Weaving is used to create a lens to view the continuity, rupture, and care – the qualities that are inherently present in females. The works in paint and print explore the fluidity of identity, memory, and language, and the art of weaving, involving pattern, repetition, and repair. The artists have consciously picked the confessional and feminist traces from the autobiography of Ajeet Cour and adapted those into their artworks, making them not only interpretative but also archival in nature to some extent. The resulting pieces are transmitters of domestic histories reworked into public testimony, private loss converted into collective narrative.

Each artwork is an active vector of a strong counterculture. It is not merely illustrative, but resonates with the echoes of themes like gender inequality, the suffocating nature of the “oppressive middle-class family structure, and the collective silencing of women’s voices. The works by the fifteen female artists engage in a powerful, intense cross-disciplinary exchange, taking the raw text and transforming it into vibrant expressions that speak to a universal yet intensely personal struggle for self-definition and liberation. 

The Artists

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jyoti Arora Kathpalia (@jyotiakathpalia)

Curator Jyoti A. Kathpalia has structured the exhibition around logical pairings of prints beside paintings, older masters placed in a way that complements the younger practitioners, to trace the shifts in technique and political temper across generations.

The fifteen eminent artists include Anupam Sud, Gogi Saroj Pal, and Jayasri Burman. Most importantly, the list includes Arpana Caur, Ajeet Cour’s daughter and an internationally renowned painter, whose art is intrinsically linked to her mother’s life. Additionally, a ten-minute performance piece by Manmeet Devgun titled Water Weaver, and the screening of the 30-minute Sahitya Akademi film on Ajeet Cour is also listed on the schedule.

The mediums employed are as diverse as the artists’ viewpoints, ranging from traditional fine arts like oil, acrylic, and charcoal painting to complex printmaking techniques (silkscreen and etching), mixed media installations, and sculptural works, making the whole experience utterly wholesome. 

Key highlights (bulleted)

• The exhibition foregrounds 15 eminent Indian women artists working across painting and print media.
  
• A film by Padma Shri Ajeet Cour anchors the show, linking literary and visual forms.
  
• Curatorial strategy favors cross-generational dialogue and material practices (weaving, printmaking, layered paint). 
  
• Institutional backing from IIC situates the show within a formal programme, expanding its public reach.
  
• Coverage across trade press, regional news sites, and social media demonstrates active cultural interest and dissemination. 

A Crit:ical Perception: Why this matters?

Weaving Water aims to do something truly offbeat in the Indian artscape; it will stitch together literature and visual art into a single platform that acknowledges both the political niche of words and the sensible power of image. Through this exhibition, Ajeet Cour’s under-acknowledged stature is going to spread beyond the limits of certain linguistic communities. Now, the fact that it truly matters the most lies in the institutionalized attempt to amplify women’s histories without restricting them to the stereotypical ambit of “women’s shows”.

The exhibition’s true success cannot be reckoned by the number of press coverings it attracts, but in how many meaningful conversations it sparks, whether audiences leave with a renewed appetite for feminist stories, are the real measures. Overall, the main emphasis lies in the fact that true change is not found in legislative reform alone, but in the bold act of breaking the silence. This exhibition forces the viewer to move past the superficial celebration of “liberated women” and grapple with Ajeet Cour’s radical proposition: that external freedom is meaningless without internal, psychological liberation.

Apparao Galleries in Chennai has opened its first-floor space in Nungambakkam to a chronically rich exploration of the mindscape with the solo exhibition, “The Terrain Between Dreams in the Understory.” It features the recent works of the Kolkata-based artist, Eleena Banik, and is running from 14–31 October 2025, open Tuesday to Saturday, 3:00 pm–6:30 pm. The collection invites the public to channelize their conscience through a layered landscape where distinctions between nature, memory, perception, and the subconscious fluidly disappear. Eleena Banik is well known for her expressionistic style and strong engagement with socio-cultural themes, particularly those related to a more feminine self. 

A Dialogue with Subconsciousness

Her canvases on view are one long-running continuation of human figures entangled with mythic motifs. This is a kind of visual language that Eleena has developed over decades of exhibiting and collecting work into public and private collections. The artistic tendencies revealed by her paintings situate her artworks somewhere between figurative narratives and lyrical abstraction. Viewers ought to find nature as a recurring motif in her paintings, which deliberately slips into abstraction. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Apparao Galleries (@apparaogalleriesindia)

The depictions of figures and fragments surface, etc., hint at personal narratives, mythic forms, and the complex inner life of the artist. They are not painted as defined characters, but are projections of echoes of different thoughts and feelings, making her work more emotionally intimate and connecting to the viewers. The way Eleena uses colour in her paintings points towards the definitiveness of the emotional architecture of her work. The pigments are often vibrant yet tempered, signifying the frequent and tumultuous shifts of the mind itself. Through her unique visual language, she possesses the capacity to turn a simple canvas into a mirror that reflects universal struggle and a quest for harmony amidst all sorts of “external dilemma” of the present world. 

The Artist

The exhibition’s careful curation serves as a testament to Eleena Banik’s maturity as an artist, exposing her fearless exploration of the niche of art. Hitherto, she has been shown both in curated group exhibitions as well as solo projects. Her work is represented in many online catalogues that map an evolving display of colour, pattern, and the body itself as a landscape. 

Key highlights

• A tightly curated solo presentation focused on Banik’s recent paintings and new explorations of subconscious terrains. 
  
• Work characterized by layered surfaces, saturated palettes, and shifting figuration that dissolves into botanical and mythic motifs.
  
• Included in city-wide October exhibition roundups, indicating local critical visibility. 
  
• Accessible location in Nungambakkam with clear visiting hours and gallery contact information. 

What to Expect

Pay attention to Eleena’s way of representing negative spaces, as they are often charged; they transform into a character in their own right. Note repetitive gestures such as hands clasping foliage, repeated profile motifs, and small, trompe-l’oeil objects, which complicate the painting’s scale and make the points of perception dynamic.

Takeaway

Today’s world is cluttered with digital imagery and hyper-realistic images. Amidst all these, Eleena Banik’s paintings offer a catalytic counterweight; they offer an argument that is often unspoken. Her canvases are not for projecting answers, but to raise questions, compelling us to think and re-think about the ‘understory’ of our own minds. For a city like Chennai, this exhibition is a great opportunity to witness an artist at the peak of her abstract exploration. 

Her paintings remind us of the value of deepening a visual language over time. It challenges the viewer not just to look, but to feel, to dream, and to engage in the deeply personal process of piecing together the fragments of what lies just beyond the veil of consciousness.