New Delhi, October 2026: LTC Gallery at Bikaner House, New Delhi, will present Capturing the Multiverse: Parallel States of Matter and Perception, a solo exhibition by award-winning abstract photo-visual artist Sarika Dandona, curated by critic-curator Georgina Maddox. Running from 27 October to 1 November 2026, the exhibition examines how everyday materials can reveal unexpected visual worlds through experimental photography.

Exploring Parallel Material Realities

The exhibition approaches the idea of the multiverse as a way of understanding perception rather than solely as a scientific theory of parallel universes. Dandona’s photographs explore the possibility that multiple visual realities can exist within the same material, moment and field of vision.

Working primarily with macro photography, the artist studies glass, ice, water, fire and weathered surfaces. Through light, reflection, movement and changes in material form, she reveals patterns that can resemble landscapes, biological structures and cosmic phenomena. The exhibition considers how familiar objects may appear radically different when observed closely.

From Glass Fractures to Cosmic Forms

In Dandona’s photographs, a crack in glass can resemble a river delta, a neural network or a geological fault line. Melting ice may evoke an aerial landscape or planetary atmosphere, while liquid forms suggest biological growth and movement. Fire becomes both energy and structure.

These visual associations form the basis of the exhibition’s exploration of interconnectedness. Although the materials differ physically, their patterns and structures can echo one another across different scales. The works invite visitors to reconsider the boundaries between the microscopic and the monumental, the natural and the imagined.

The exhibition’s central themes include:

• Material transformation: The changing forms of glass, ice, water, fire and other physical substances.
• Perception and scale: How close observation can make familiar materials appear unfamiliar.
• Interconnectedness: The recurrence of similar patterns and structures across different materials and environments.
• Photography as discovery: The use of real physical phenomena to reveal unexpected visual possibilities.

Photography Without Digital Fabrication

A key aspect of Dandona’s practice is her emphasis on capturing physical phenomena in-camera. According to the exhibition brief, the abstract images emerge from the interaction of light and materials rather than digitally fabricated or AI-generated imagery.

The process places observation at the centre of the work. The photographs may evoke distant planets, intricate landscapes or microscopic organisms, but their visual effects originate in the physical properties of the subjects being photographed.

Dandona describes her approach as a form of visual inquiry, shaped by curiosity about what lies beneath the visible surface of things. Her work asks viewers to look beyond immediate appearances and consider how material forms can produce different interpretations depending on perspective and context.

An Artistic Practice Shaped by Multiple Disciplines

Dandona’s background spans biotechnology, microbiology, journalism and healthcare entrepreneurship. Her scientific training encouraged close observation of structures beyond the naked eye, while journalism introduced an emphasis on inquiry and context. Her later professional experience further informed her interest in complex systems and continuous change.

She has developed her photographic practice over approximately fifteen years, concentrating on macro imagery and the transformation of ordinary substances. Her work has also appeared in exhibitions and collections documented on her Saatchi Art profile.

For Dandona, the multiverse is not limited to distant galaxies or theoretical possibilities. It also exists in the different ways everyday matter can be seen and understood. As she states in her artist’s statement, “Reality is rarely singular. The closer we look, the more layers emerge.”

Curatorial Perspective and Exhibition Presentation

The exhibition is curated by Georgina Maddox, an independent critic-curator whose work engages with contemporary Indian art and critical writing. Her professional background includes journalism, exhibition-making and writing on visual art.

The presentation of the photographs is also part of the exhibition’s approach. Dandona considers the scale, placement, materials and relationships between individual images important to how viewers experience the work. The photographs may also lend themselves to interdisciplinary installations involving architecture, material culture and immersive sensory environments.

Exhibition Details

The press release does not specify admission charges, daily visiting hours or a registration process. Visitors should consult the venue’s official listing for any access updates before planning a visit.

Looking Beyond the Visible

Through its focus on physical materials and changing visual forms, the exhibition offers a perspective on photography as a means of investigating the world rather than simply recording it. Its images connect artistic observation with questions about perception, impermanence and the relationships between different forms of matter.

For audiences interested in contemporary photography, science and visual culture, the exhibition provides an opportunity to reconsider familiar substances and the interpretations they invite. It also encourages a broader reflection on how sustained observation can reveal connections between seemingly unrelated parts of the natural world.

ArtKriti to Open “Threshold of Traces: Stitched with an Amber Thread“, a group exhibition featuring Siddharth Jharia, Soumick Nag, Sonia Sareen and Gaurav Chawla, at Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, from 25 to 29 October 2026. The exhibition brings together figurative realism, landscape painting, sculpture and abstraction to explore themes of upheaval, the human body, damage and renewal.

About the Exhibition

Threshold of Traces: Stitched with an Amber Thread considers the relationship between the human figure, landscape and abstraction. Rather than treating these as separate subjects, the exhibition brings them together through the idea of survival and the marks left by experiences of change.

The title draws on the imagery of thresholds, traces and amber. A threshold represents a point of transition, while a trace refers to what remains after an event or experience. Amber, formed as a tree responds to injury, serves as a central metaphor for damage, preservation and the passage of time.

The four artists approach these ideas through different materials and artistic processes. Their works consider how fracture, vulnerability and change can become part of a continuing process of growth.

Artists and Their Works

The exhibition is organised around four bodies of work, each reflecting a distinct artistic practice.

• Siddharth Jharia – Traces of the Flesh: Jharia works with watercolour to depict the human figure in states of transition. His paintings explore vulnerability and luminosity through the transparency and unpredictability of the medium.
• Soumick Nag – The Weathered Terrain: Nag’s landscape paintings draw on the terrain of the Niti Valley. Working primarily with Vandyke brown and black, he explores the relationship between geological change, observation and spontaneity.
• Sonia Sareen – The Ruin & The Bloom: Sareen presents sculptures that examine the point where the human silhouette begins to resemble a landscape. Her practice considers the relationship between fracture, growth and shelter.
• Gaurav Chawla – The Volcanic Core: Chawla, founder of ArtKriti, presents abstract paintings built through layered applications of paint. The works explore turbulence, pressure and the emergence of light through accumulated layers.

Together, these practices connect figurative painting, landscape, sculpture and abstraction through a shared interest in transformation and the traces left by experience.

Event Details

The exhibition is presented by ArtKriti, an Indian art gallery and platform founded by Gaurav Chawla. The platform focuses on contemporary art and seeks to connect artists with audiences through exhibitions and other art-related initiatives.

Takeaway

Threshold of Traces: Stitched with an Amber Thread brings four contemporary artists together to examine transition, vulnerability and renewal through different artistic mediums. The exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to encounter figurative painting, landscape, sculpture and abstraction in a shared gallery setting. It will be on view at Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, from 25 to 29 October 2026.

New Delhi, October 16, 2026: An exhibition bringing together works by sixty Indian modern and post-Independence artists will open at Shridharani Art Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. Titled Making the Modern: Sixty Indian Master Artists, the exhibition is presented by the Raza Foundation in collaboration with Progressive Art Gallery and curated by art historian and independent curator Yashodhara Dalmia. A preview is scheduled for October 17 at 6 pm, with the exhibition listed as running through October 26, 2026.

Exploring the Many Histories of Indian Modernism

The exhibition examines the development of modern Indian art through different generations, artistic approaches and cultural influences. Rather than presenting a single, chronological account, it brings together artists whose practices responded to changing social realities, Indian traditions and international developments in art.

According to the exhibition catalogue, Indian modernism emerged through a continuing exchange between inherited visual traditions and new forms of expression. The participating artists explored subjects ranging from mythology, spirituality and landscape to urban life, identity, memory and displacement.

From Early Modern Pioneers to Post-Independence Artists

The selection includes artists who helped shape the foundations of modern Indian art, including Raja Ravi Varma, Abanindranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Amrita Sher-Gil and Jamini Roy. Their approaches differed considerably, from the integration of European academic realism with Indian subjects to the reinterpretation of folk traditions and the search for an artistic language rooted in Indian cultural experience.

The exhibition also features artists associated with the decades surrounding Independence and the years that followed. These include M. F. Husain, F. N. Souza, S. H. Raza, V. S. Gaitonde, Ram Kumar, Akbar Padamsee, Krishen Khanna, Ganesh Haloi, Nasreen Mohamedi, Bhupen Khakhar, Arpita Singh and Zarina Hashmi.

The Progressive Artists’ Group and New Artistic Languages

A significant part of the exhibition’s narrative concerns the Progressive Artists’ Group, formed in Bombay in 1947. Its members sought to develop contemporary artistic approaches that moved beyond colonial academic conventions and a romanticised revival of the past.

The group included Souza, Husain, Raza, K. H. Ara, H. A. Gade and sculptor S. K. Bakre. Their practices differed, but their experiments helped expand the possibilities of modern Indian painting. Other artists represented in the exhibition pursued abstraction, figurative expression, landscape and socially engaged imagery, reflecting the diversity of approaches that emerged across the country.

Painting, Sculpture and Social Experience

Making the Modern extends beyond painting to include sculptors such as Ram Kinkar Baij, Pradosh Das Gupta, Himmat Shah, Meera Mukherjee, Mrinalini Mukherjee, S. Nandgopal, Chintamani Kar, S. Dhanpal, B. Vithal and K. S. Radhakrishnan. Their inclusion highlights the role of material, form and space in the development of modern Indian sculpture.

The catalogue also draws attention to artists whose work engages with everyday life and social conditions. The concerns explored across the exhibition include poverty, migration, Partition, changing urban environments and the experiences of marginalised communities. Together, these themes place artistic experimentation within the wider history of modern India.

Curator and Organisers

Yashodhara Dalmia is an independent curator and art historian whose work includes writing on modern Indian art and curating exhibitions devoted to significant artists and movements. Her published books include Amrita Sher-Gil and The Making of Modern Indian Art. The exhibition brings her research interests into a presentation that places multiple artistic generations in conversation.

The Raza Foundation, established in 2001 by artist Sayed Haider Raza, works across art, culture and ideas through exhibitions, publications, discussions and fellowships. Progressive Art Gallery is the collaborating gallery for the presentation. Triveni Kala Sangam, established in 1950, provides a multidisciplinary cultural setting for visual art, dance and music.

Dates, Venue and Visitor Information

By bringing together sixty artists across different generations and mediums, Making the Modern offers visitors an opportunity to consider how Indian modern art developed through exchanges between tradition, experimentation and social change. It also provides a shared setting for examining the varied artistic responses that have shaped the country’s cultural history.