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Artworks
EA Locus in Focus | IMAGINARIUM 3.0
Residency 2024
Residency Open Day – February 7, 2024 (Open to all)5th Floor, Emami Art, Kolkata
Residency Dates: January 5 – 8 February, 2024
EA Locus in Focus is a long-term project conceptualized to support artists from India's Eastern and Northeastern regions. This year, along with the exhibition and awards, we are reintroducing the EA residency program for artists living and working in the eastern and northeastern regions under the EA Locus in Focus program.
Our annual awards, exhibition, and residency programs have provided support, mentorship, and a platform for discourse to emerging artists since 2020. The residency program is planned to conclude with an Open Day, inviting viewers to see the works realised during the residency period. Over the period of the residency, the selected artists will engage in various projects, studio visits, site visits, presentations and talks.
We congratulate and warmly welcome the six artists, Ali Akbar PN, Chris Basumatary, Deepanwita Das, Manmita Ray, Partha Banik and Vishal Kumar Gupta for the third edition of our Annual Residency Program.
Ali Akbar P N
Ali Akbar P N was born in 1996 in Koolimuttam, Central Kerala. The artist has obtained his MVA in Painting from Maharaja Sayaji Rao University, Vadodara, Gujarat 2020 and BFA in Painting from the Govt. College of Fine Arts Thrissur, Kerala 2018.
Ali Akbar was selected by an eminent jury for the first award at the annual all-India open call awards and exhibition Imaginarium 2.0 atEmami Art Kolkata 2022. Emami Art also exhibited Ali Akbar at the India Art Fair, 2023 and the Architecture Digest Design Show in December 2022, Mumbai. He has participated in many exhibitions including Fault Lines: Visual Symptoms of Discordances in Indian History at Conflictorium, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Embark, 2023, Baroda; India Art Fair 2023; Baroda Anuelle 2023, Gallery White Vadodara; From Where All That Sweat? , Trivandrum 2022; The Flying Goat Show, Goa 2022; Open Studio, Baroda 2021; Untitled III Online Exhibition, Priyasri Art Gallery Mumbai 2020; Nasreen Mohammedi Studio Display, MSU Baroda 2019 – 2020; Prologue 18 Final Display, Govt. College of Fine Arts Thrissur 2018; Kala Mela Art Exhibition, Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi 2018; Group Show in Onyx Art Gallery, Kochi 2017; Charcoal Group Art Exhibition, Calicut 2017; Kasthuri Sreenivasan Trust Annual Show, Coimbatore 2017. He currently resides and works in Vadodara, Gujarat, India.
Chris Basumatary
Born in 1993, Chris Basumatary is an artist based in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India. He obtained his B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Painting from the Government College of Art and Craft, Calcutta in 2020 and 2022 respectively.
Basumatary’s works have been exhibited in various group shows, including ‘In Defense of Intuition’ curated by Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi, Dhi Contemporary, Hyderabad, 2023, Students’ Biennale 2022-23, Kochi Biennale Foundation, Kochi, 2023, and Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata, 2022. Additionally, Basumatary was also a part of online workshops by ACT Programme, London, 2023 (hosted by Francesca Bellini-Joseph), a three-day workshop hosted by Shaunak Mahbubani and Vidisha Fadescha at Autopoesis: Allied for the Uncertain Futures Part 4, Party Office, Delhi, 2023. He is the recipient of Imaginarium 3.0, a residency at Emami Art, Kolkata (2023-2024), Space118 Fine Arts Grant 2023-24, Khoj Peers Share, Khoj Studios, Delhi, 2022, and Artdemic Award by The Gujral Foundation in 2021.
Deepanwita Das
Born in 1998, Deepanwita Das completed her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Printmaking from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata in 2021 and 2023 respectively.
Das has participated in several exhibitions all over India – the annual exhibition of West Bengal State Academy of Dance, Music and Visual Arts in 2023, the Annual show of Birla Academy of Art and Culture in 2023, CAF Art & Design in 2021, and others. She received the Narendrapur Art Connect Foundation Scholarship in 2022. She has also participated in the Arthshila All India Students Camp in 2023. Recently she was selected for Imaginarium 3.0, a residency by Emami Art (2023 – 2024).
Manmita Ray
Manmita Ray is a visual artist born in 1996, who completed a B.F.A. and an M.F.A in Painting from Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan in 2020 and 2023 respectively.
Ray has participated in various workshops such as Under the Mango Tree workshop in 2020, Japanese Painting and Miniature Painting workshops, Kala Sakshi Memorial Trust workshop (2020-21), Camel Art Foundation Camp in Ajanta, and Imaginarium 3.0, an Emami Art Residency (2023-24). Her works were exhibited at Kalasakshi (Online) Exhibition 2020-21, Artdemic (online exhibition, 2021), Camel Art Foundation (CAF) National Art Exhibition in Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai in 2022-23, and the 100-year Kala Bhavana group exhibition in 2023.
Partha Banik
Partha Banik, born in 1992, is a visual artist from Tripura with a B.F.A. in Painting from Government College of Art & Craft, Agartala, Tripura West (2011-2015) and an M.F.A. in Painting from Chamrajendra Government College of Visual Arts (CAVA), Mysore, Karnataka (2015-2017).
Banik has attended several camps including the North East Confluence Art Camp, NEZCC, Dimapur in 2022, Painting Workshop by Tripura State Higher Education Council in 2021, World Tourism Day workshop by Tripura Tourism in 2021, Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, an online Painting and Sculpture workshop of LKA in 2021, and the Performance Workshop with Dorothea Rust and Muller Irena in 2016. His works have been exhibited at various group shows such as the 3rd All India Patron Group Show 2023-24, The Flying Goat Show, Goa 2022, Bangkok Biennale Cloud 9 Pavilion 2020, Kochi Muziris Student Biennale 2014 – 15 and 2016 – 17, Fragrances of North East Guwahati 2015, and Fresh Marks, a group exhibition of Painting and Performance in 2015, among others.
Vishal Kumar Gupta
Born in 1996 in Ranchi, Jharkhand, Vishal Kumar Gupta completed his B.F.A. in painting from Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan in 2021, and his M.F.A. in painting from the faculty of fine art at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 2023.
In his practice, Gupta often focuses on landscapes and trees, taking reference from the wounded and fragmented parts of trees, and uses oil-based materials for his paintings. His works were shown at the annual display, MSU Baroda and BFA Online Degree Show, 2021, Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan. He received the Nasreen Mohamedi Award 2022-2023 in painting. Vishal Kumar Gupta is currently based in Baroda.
An eminent panel of five jurors selected the artists for the one-month residency program from the applications received through IMAGINARIUM 3.0 open call.
Jagdip Jagpal is an exhibition maker and founder of Silvia’s Mother, a gallery which supports artists from the global majority. Before moving to India in 2017, to revamp the India Art Fair, she worked with Tate, The Whitworth and New Art Exchange. She currently Chairs UP Projects, a not-for-profit that curates and commissions public art.
Mario D’Souza is a curator and writer based between Goa and Kochi, India. He is the Director of Programmes at the Kochi Biennale Foundation and was on the curatorial team for the 5th edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2022). He is also a resident curator at HH Art Spaces Goa. He was formerly the curator at Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi.
Mithu Sen explores myths of identity and their intersection with the structures of our world, social, political, economic and emotional. Sen works fundamentally as a performer, tangling with the politics of language, disciplining of bodies, conventions of society, and polite impositions of the art world. She has exhibited in major international fairs and shows, including Sharjah Biennale 15, UAE (2023); Sonsbeek 20-24, Arnhem, Netherlands (2021); APT9-9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery/ Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2018) and Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg (2018). She recently had her major survey show at ACCA, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia.
Dr. Paula Sengupta is an artist, academic, art writer and curator based in Kolkata. She graduated in Painting from the College of Art, New Delhi, followed by MFA and PhD in Printmaking from Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan. She is currently a Professor and Head of the Department of Graphics-Printmaking at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. She taught as Guest Faculty at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Kolkata, from 1999-2003. She is a member of the Board of Studies at the Department of Visual Art, Kalyani University; a member of the Board of Governors at the Indian Institute of Management, Shillong and secretary of the artists’ initiative, Khoj Kolkata.
Ushmita Sahu, the Director and Head Curator of Emami Art, has worked as an artist, independent curator, art writer and scholar for several years before joining Emami Art in 2021 and has numerous national and international projects to her credit. She has participated in seminars, symposiums and talk series at several institutes, including Victoria and Albert Museum London. She is a recipient of the India Foundation for the Arts research grant for her work on the modernist artist-designer Riten Mozumdar.
