Art Heritage, the New Delhi gallery founded in 1977 by Ebrahim and Roshen Alkazi, presents a new exhibition titled What Patience Reveals | Oil Works of Transition that places the medium of oil painting at the center of inquiry. The show opens on September 18, 2025, at 6 PM and is scheduled to run until October 1, 2025. The venue is located at 205 Tansen Marg, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. The gallery timings are generally from 10 AM to 7 PM.
\The show reflects on the relationship between oil and time, considering both medium and theme through the works of six contemporary artists: Anoop Panicker, Dipin Chandran, Gautam Rahul, Golak Khandual, Neeraj Singh Khandka, and Raka Panda.
For centuries, oil on canvas has been the dominant idiom of painting, celebrated for its slow-drying properties that allow reflection, blending, and layering. In this exhibition, oil is seen as a metaphor for permanence, memory, and continuity, embodying time not only in subject but also in process.
The exhibition asks: why do artists choose oil despite its expense, unpredictability, and the frustrations of drying time? The curatorial premise connects oil’s slowness and materiality to the notion of temporality. Each participating artist approaches time in distinct ways: as memory, as passage, as interruption, as continuity, and as lived process.
Featured Artists
Anoop Panicker (b. 1961, Kerala) presents Psychogeographic Reflections (2023–24), a series of oil paintings where architectural motifs intersect with everyday objects to suggest nonlinear time shaped by memory and perception. His practice builds on earlier sculptural explorations of “lost time,” here shifting toward the expansiveness of the present.
Dipin Chandran (b. 1995, Kerala) experiments with form, medium, and scale in works such as Untitled (2024), a triptych in oil. Drawing from personal memory and social observation, he uses repetitive motifs and layered textures to invoke ritualistic and introspective space.
Gautam Rahul (b. 1990, New Delhi) employs his own body as subject in works such as Layer by Layer (2024) and Sacrifice (2023). His paintings dwell on grief, transformation, and renewal, treating the slow process of oil painting as a mirror for human vulnerability and change.
Golak Khandual (b. 1959, Odisha), a practising architect, approaches oil with freshness and spontaneity. His portraits on rag paper and canvas—such as Brotherman Babli and Fear of Falling (2023)—suspend moments of character and expression, connecting memory with imagination.
Gautam Rahul, Sacrifice, 2023
Neeraj Singh Khandka (b. 1983, Nainital) confronts the dissonance between rural childhood and urban present in Putting One More Brick (2023). His work juxtaposes metropolitan structures with nostalgia for early landscapes, embodying both memory and mortality.
Raka Panda (b. 1990, West Bengal) contributes works created during her Santiniketan years (2016), such as The Living Space and Rapidity. Drawing from crowded community life, her compositions capture fleeting human interactions and the immediacy of social spaces.
Oil as Medium and Metaphor
Together, the artists emphasize oil paint not only as a technique but as an aesthetic philosophy. Its slowness aligns with waiting, layering, and memory; its luminosity suggests endurance across time. Yet, as noted by the artists themselves, oil also demands discipline, careful preservation, and patience—qualities that extend beyond technique to a broader meditation on existence.
About Art Heritage
Since its founding in 1977, Art Heritage has staged over 650 exhibitions and produced more than 450 catalogues, situating itself as a platform for both established and emerging artists. Based at Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi, the gallery continues to pair curatorial innovation with critical discourse, engaging audiences through exhibitions, catalogues, and multidisciplinary programming.
This exhibition underscores Art Heritage’s ongoing commitment to exploring the philosophical dimensions of artistic practice while supporting diverse voices in contemporary Indian art.
Cover Image: Anoop Panicker, Psychogeographic Reflections | Neeraj Singh Khandka, Putting One More Brick, 2023.
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