For the first time, India participates in the 8th International Biennale of Non-Objective Art, showcasing works by Ankon Mitra, Bikash Chandra Senapati, Chetnaa, Neeraja Divate, Neerja Chandna Peters, Pranjit Sarma, and Satish Sharma
By Georgina Maddox
It’s an evening of firsts, for doctor-turned-artist Neerja Chandna Peters, who is thrilled at the turnout of folks on opening night of the 8th International Biennale of Non-Objective Art. “I was so excited when I learned that my work could be featured in this international biennale, but then I thought about why not have a group exhibition and build a community of artists whose work fits into the discipline of minimalism or what has been called non-objective art? After all, we do not really have a group of artists coming together for an aesthetic purpose, that outlives an exhibition, and since I have the space, I thought why not?” says Peters.
This exhibition, which opened on September 19, 2025, brings together a diverse group of contemporary artists working across sculpture, origami, relief, painting, drawing, and printmaking. Despite differences in background and medium, each artist speaks through a distinct visual language—one that embraces minimalism, abstraction, and material exploration to open new ways of seeing and feeling.
Together, they form part of a larger global movement in 21st century art—one that moves beyond convention, using pared-down forms and reductive gestures to create powerful, often contemplative encounters. “These works engage not through spectacle, but through presence, speaking with restraint, yet carrying profound intensity.”
There is no doubt that Peters’ own work could have easily filled her chic studio space—a space that reveals itself through pure white walls, cool grey accessories, and warm brown sink-in sofas. Her work, in contrast, is characterized by stunning arrangements of bright pinks, blues, yellows, and oranges. The geometric forms are arranged in triangles, circles, and rectangles, with a precision and control that evokes G.R. Santosh, but not a Raza, for it does not have those quivering lines that the progressive maestro was known for. The work, in fact, has its own logic and approach as it harmonizes shapes and colours into an energy that is quite evocative of Peters’ approach: a quiet dialogue between intention and accident.
The other artists featured include Triveni artists Neeraja Divate, Satish Sharma, and Chetnaa, who share that minimal approach, with textures and colours as their primary sources of expression. Neeraja Divate routinely investigates notions of the raindrop, deeply rooted in the nostalgia of her childhood spent in a small town in Andhra Pradesh, where rain was a rare blessing. Her work contemplates rain through finely rendered incised lines and muted colours.
Satish Sharma explores scale through the quantity and layering of pigments, resulting in rich, tactile surfaces that invite sensory engagement. Sharma believes that visual art possesses a language of its own—capable of conveying emotions and ideas beyond words.
In her latest series of work, Chetnaa uses embossing and minimal abstractions to explore print as a constant relationship between dark and light, black and white, negative and positive. Her white-on-white surfaces hold their intensity in restraint.
Ankon Mitra created work that was quite different from his paper-folded wall and ceiling installations; one sees two-dimensional work that he calls ‘tools’ and enabling elements. Bikash Chandra Senapati’s work reflects the changing shadows of cherished memories from his life’s journey—memories tied to the simplicity and essence of village life. He has employed the intaglio etching process to create intricate lines that convey both the nostalgia and transience of that place.
Pranjit Sarma’s work draws inspiration from the minimalist aesthetic of the electrocardiogram, a form that communicates complex physiological and pathological data through deceptively simple lines. By extracting the waveform from its clinical context and re-situating it within an abstract visual language, he aims to explore both tangible and intangible aspects of human experience. It’s quite remarkable what complexity can be conveyed by a simple arrangement of lines.
Historically, when Kazimir Malevich exhibited the revolutionary painting ‘Black Square’ circa 1915, he transformed modernism. Malevich said of the painting: ‘the experience of pure non-objectivity in the white emptiness of a liberated nothing’.
A century on from the genesis of non-objectivity and concrete art within Western art, there has been a succession of related movements in modernism, some of which include Suprematism, Constructivism, De Stijl, Bauhaus, ZERO, Arte Povera, Op Art, Minimalism, Hard Edge Painting, Process Art, and Neo-Geo.
Now the non-objective art movement has gained global recognition, and it is uniquely taking place in artists’ studios as part of a biennale.
Domestic and non-institutional frameworks are, in a way, a return to pre-institutional formats—art makers were formerly presented in homes and involved community engagement and dialogue via self-organising art societies when museums and institutions were not there. It was these clusters that produced the contemporary art that we understand today.
As can be seen, the biennale is taking place at studios across the globe: in London, it is Saturation Point at Hans Patrick’s studio; in Warsaw, it is Discursive Geometry by Mark Starel; in Paris, Abstract Projects features Bogumila Strojna; and in Bangkok, TBA features Giles Ryder.
There are also Istanbul, Athens, and Heidelberg, to name a few more locations.
In Delhi, one notices that a few other locations like the Gurgaon-based artist Varanita have had open-studios, although these were not part of the coordinated global event that the Non-Objective open studio represents, which is currently finding new ways to express, create, and look at art, with renewed vigour and transformed intellectual intent. It is not just focused on the market. Let us celebrate this new addition to the art activity in the capital of art and aesthetics.
The show will continue until October 10, 2025; catch it at J-24 Basement, Saket, New Delhi.
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