The line between fine art and craft has been steadily blurring over the past few decades. Traditionally, craft has been tied to manual skill, materiality, and function, while fine art was seen as the domain of ideas, aesthetics and intellectual depth. But today, a wave of contemporary Indian artists is challenging this outdated divide, these artists are not merely preserving traditional forms, they are reimagining them. In doing so, they are using ancient methods to explore contemporary themes, adding new layers of meaning to both art and craft in the process.
Here are five artists whose practices are rooted in traditional Indian art forms.
Spandita Malik
Spandita Malik is an Indian visual artist living and working in New York City. Her work addresses the current global socio-political state of affairs, with a focus on women’s rights and gendered violence. Malik specializes in process-based photography, particularly photographic surface embroideries and collaborations with women in India.
Lavanya Mani
Lavanya Mani, a Bangalore and Vadodara based artist, revitalizes traditional Indian textile practices, particularly Kalamkari by embedding contemporary narratives into age old techniques, she explores themes such as migration, identity, colonial history, and trade. Combining kalamkari with embroidery, applique, batik and painting on cloth.
Savia Mahajan
Savia Mahajan, lives and works in Mumbai, her remarkable collaboration with Ashok Siju, a master indigo dyer from Bhujodi, Gujarat’s Vankar community, brings together two ancient crafts, clay work and indigo dyeing. Drawing from traditions dating back to the Indus Valley, their work, Pillars of creation, fuses fired earth and fermented indigo into a powerful convergence of material and memory.
Gurjeet Singh
A powerful collaboration with Jaipur Rugs, Gurjeet Singh’s latest body of work pays tribute to the lives of artisans and residents of Jaipur. Created from repurposed silk sarees and technique with themes central to Gurjeet’s practice, identity, queerness, and societal pressures. Rooted in shared conversations and lived experiences, the works capture emotional undercurrents of yearning, freedom, and self expression.
Diti Baruah
Diti’s embroidered landscapes pay homage to the natural heritage of Northeast India. Using French knots, needle felting, and paint brushing, her aerial embroideries capture scenes like the Jhanjhi River in Assam, Meghalaya’s Living Root Bridge, and the phumdis of Loktak Lake. Rooted in memories of growing up in Guwahati and visiting her ancestral home in Zamira, Baruah’s work is both nostalgic and urgent, preserving fading landscapes in thread while drawing attention to the threats of urbanisation
Contemporary Indian artists are reimagining traditional practices, keeping the country’s rich cultural heritage both alive and relevant. By adapting age old techniques for modern contexts. They preserve these crafts while making them accessible to new audiences. This fusion of the ancient and the contemporary has gained increasing recognition on the global stage. These artists not only deepen cultural understanding but also ensure that Indian art continues to evolve, resonate, and inspire both locally and internationally.
Featuring Image Courtesy: Selvedge Magazine
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