32 Indian artists reflect on silence and change at a new exhibition spotlighting emerging, contemporary practices

Kaushik Charoliya’s Untitled-5 (2024) is a study of people in motion—colourfully-dressed and walking in the backdrop of concrete, cobblestones and peeling paint. A portfolio of 48 works of mixed media on paper, the series is inspired by everyday life, and the silence found even in the busiest cities. In his piece, these subjects are caught between departure and arrival, positioned in front of the artist for a brief moment. That suspended moment is, in many ways, the animating idea behind The Shifting of Silence, a fundraising exhibition in support of Space118 Art Foundation, where Charoliya’s piece is on display. The Shifting of Silence gathers 32 artists around a single premise: that silence is never really empty.

The Shifting of Silence is curated by Saloni Doshi, art patron and founder of Space118 Foundation, and has been exhibited in Delhi in collaboration with Blueprint12; it will subsequently be on view in Mumbai. “Everything we do is for the artist,” says Doshi who has, over the last two decades, built an art collection centred on living artists and emerging voices. “We’re a grant-making foundation; we provide financial grants to young artists. For 13 years, across 500 to 600 artists, we’ve offered free residencies and studio space.” Space118 Foundation’s work has, over the years, spotlighted several notable artists and this edition presents names such as Utkarsh Shakya, Avneet Chawla, Samir Das, Suresh K. Singha, Radhika Kacha and Riddhi Vasoya.

For the artists, this particular exhibition resonates. “The Shifting of Silence feels incredibly relevant to the moment we’re living in,” says artist Avneet Chawla. “Silence isn’t really silent anymore—voices, questions and conversations are finding their way through. My charcoal and graphite works have always been interested in those in-between states: light and shadow, certainty and doubt, endings and beginnings.” Her pieces in the show are angular and black-and-white pieces; they seem to show the absence of life, with their Brutalist structure. This absence in the darkness, however, also suggests an infinite possibility of life that hides in the dark unknown, waiting to be explored. Chawla said that her work on display at the exhibition, There’s a Crack in Everything, That’s How the Light Gets In (2023), “reminds me that every fracture also carries possibility. Maybe the real question is: are we willing to see the crack as damage, or as the place where the light finally enters?”

Utkarsh Shakya, like Chawla, also plays with colour and dimension—his paintings are dreamlike and airy. “The work I am exhibiting,” he says, “is part of my exploration of North Indian marriages and the moments that happen during the journey, where people often follow certain beliefs and customs so that they find a sense of belonging within society.” His painting, Dahej Ka Scooter (2025), is a lonesome painting of a woman adorned in a sari and veil sitting on a scooter, her hands tightly gripping the handles as she looks downwards. The work “addresses the tradition of dowry, still present in many North Indian marriages,” he said. In this painting, however, the roles are reversed—and the bride takes ownership of the gift given to her by her family. An older man, the groom, looks disapprovingly at her, sitting at the very end of the scooter.

Her heart-shaped sunglasses tilt forward, as if they assume the place of her eyes. “By incorporating humour into my paintings,” Shakya says, “I try to look beyond the spectacle of the celebration to reflect on its underlying ironies, and how unconsciously people respond to these moments. Through these observations, I hope to invite viewers to reconsider the familiar situations from a fresh perspective.”

Samir Das, who has a labyrinthine work on display, writes that his works are deeply rooted in the essence of displacement. His pieces on display are made with ink, graphite, and charcoal, and seem to resemble ant mazes and natural sand patterns. As per the exhibition note, Das “traces the movements of rivers within the shifting geographies of the Indian terrain.” His displayed works show the tensions between memory and territory, and the patterns of collective movements.

The show has come to occupy a crucial space in Space 118 Foundation’s ongoing efforts to spotlight new and emerging artists, “It’s a huge range of artists from across the length and breadth of the country,” says Doshi. “I feel privileged to showcase voices we've spent over a year seeking out. It's been very encouraging, because in both Mumbai and Delhi, people have really responded.”

(Following the exhibition in Delhi till August 2, The Shifting of Silence is on view at Space118 Foundation in Mumbai till August 15, 2026)