New Delhi-based artist Naman Mahipal is presenting his solo exhibition Palimpsest of Faces: Memory Etched in Form at The Lexicon Art, Connaught Place, open until September 20, 2025. The exhibition brings together a body of sculptural works that examine identity, memory, and spirituality through a striking interplay of material, texture, and form.
At the centre of the show is Mahipal’s Identity Series, which includes Vintage Identity, Contemporary Identity, and Identity. Through sculpted faces, abstracted structures, and symbolic material choices, the series reflects on what it means to construct, inherit, and conceal identity in today’s fractured world.
Artwork featured: Trinetra and Modern Indian Woman 2 | Image courtesy: Lexicon art
“Mahipal beckons the viewer to reflect on personal and collective transformation, where identity is both inherited and invented, seen and concealed,” states the exhibition note. His command over materials—spanning wood, stone, resin, MDF, brass, and steel—creates what the gallery describes as “a tactile vocabulary that speaks to the layered nature of human experience.”
Sculptures in the exhibition oscillate between devotional imagery and critique, echoing spirituality while addressing contemporary questions of commodification and systemic gaze. The works “confront the viewer with the tension between inner truth and outward display, reverence and discomfort, presence and performativity,” the text adds.
A standout work, Trinetra (MDF, brass ball, stone base), exemplifies Mahipal’s use of material as metaphor. While brass invokes ritual and the sacred, the physicality of wood and stone emphasises endurance and resilience, grounding his conceptual explorations within tangible form.
Founder-Director Mamta Nath of The Lexicon Art underlines the philosophical resonance of Mahipal’s show:
“Each textured face and abstracted form in the Identity Series reflects not just his technical mastery, but also the courage to confront, question, and reimagine the fabric of selfhood in a rapidly changing world… Naman’s unique vision—shaped by his personal journey—reminds us that art is not only an artifact to be looked at, but a living inquiry.”
Born in 1993 in New Delhi, Naman Mahipal studied multimedia and animation at Apeejay Satya University and has developed a distinctive visual language that fuses sculptural and painterly practices. His art often revolves around faces—observed, remembered, and reimagined—as carriers of emotional depth and symbolic significance. Living with congenital hearing impairment, he has consistently explored art as “a powerful channel for self-expression and an expansive world beyond medical diagnosis.”
His practice also recurrently engages with religious iconography, inspired by his mother’s spiritual outlook. Previous exhibitions include the India Art Festival, New Delhi (2017), Chirantan in Kolkata (2020), a solo sculpture show at DLF Camellias, Gurugram (2022), and recent projects with The Lexicon Art in New Delhi.
For The Lexicon Art, which has spent over a decade building a platform that “bridges the gap between art and the people,” this exhibition is part of its ongoing commitment to staging nuanced, conceptually rich displays.
Cover Image: Mosaic Flux | Image courtesy: Lexicon art
Contributor
