Tom Vattakuzhy’s first solo exhibition in London, Shifting Ground, brings a new body of paintings to AstaGuru London Gallery from 14 October to 10 November 2026, presented by the Institute of Contemporary Indian Art (ICIA) and AstaGuru as part of Asian Art in London 2026.
The exhibition marks an important international moment for contemporary Indian painting, positioning Vattakuzhy’s charged images of memory, domestic life, labour and social uncertainty before a global audience during London’s autumn art season.
What Is Shifting Ground About?
Shifting Ground gathers new paintings by the Kerala-born artist, continuing his exploration of solitary figures, interiors, animals and moments of pause. His work is known for its cinematic stillness: scenes appear ordinary at first, yet gradually reveal psychological tension, moral ambiguity and the weight of lived history.
The exhibition’s title suggests instability across personal, social, political and ecological terrain. Rather than offering direct statements, Vattakuzhy allows meaning to emerge through gesture, space, silence and relationships, inviting viewers to look longer.
Tom Vattakuzhy: A Painter of Memory and Everyday Life
Born in 1967, Tom Vattakuzhy is a painter, printmaker and illustrator from Kerala. He studied printmaking at Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, and completed his MFA at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.
His paintings frequently centre on domestic interiors, fractured households, migrants, farmers and figures caught between movement and stillness. in his paintings, Kerala becomes a psychological and social condition shaped by histories of caste, labour, migration, reform and political change.
Kerala’s Histories in Tom Vattakuzhy’s Paintings
Kerala’s layered past, its position in the global spice trade, colonial encounters, anti-caste reform movements and communist political tradition forms an atmospheric undercurrent in Vattakuzhy’s work. These histories enter the paintings through everyday scenes rather than overt symbolism.
The result is a practice in which the intimate and the political coexist: a room, a gaze, a pause or a family grouping can carry the pressure of displacement, inequality and social transformation.
The London presentation coincides with Asian Art in London 2026, which runs from 29 October to 10 November and brings together exhibitions, auctions, talks and events across the city.
Curatorial Perspective
Siddharth Sivakumar, Director of Curation and Artist Relations at ICIA, frames the exhibition around contradiction: young and old, light and dark, intimacy and distance, movement and stillness. Rather than resolving these oppositions, Vattakuzhy holds them in suspension.
This makes Tom Vattakuzhy’s Shifting Ground especially timely. At a moment of global political, environmental and social uncertainty, the paintings ask how large-scale instability enters private life, shaping relationships, identity and the spaces people inhabit.
For audiences interested in contemporary Indian art, figurative painting, Kerala’s cultural history and the emotional politics of everyday life, Shifting Ground offers a rare opportunity to see a major new body of work by one of India’s most contemplative painters in an international context.
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