TEJA GAVANKAR
Teja Gavankar, born in Mumbai in 1986, is an artist renowned for her work in sculptures and drawings. She completed her BFA from L.S. Raheja School of Art, Mumbai, in 2006, and her MVA in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S.U. Baroda, in 2014. Additionally, she holds a certificate in Indian Aesthetics from Mumbai University. Teja's artistic practice focuses on transforming mundane spaces and materials, exploring the interplay between subjective and objective realities, and challenging perceptions of spatial subjectivity.
Teja had her first international solo exhibition at The Optica Centre for Contemporary Art in Montreal, Canada, in 2017. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including A Room Of One's Own at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, in 2023; Parsec, curated by Nupur Dalmia at Gallery ARK, Vadodara, in 2022; Hub India: Maximum Minimum, curated by Myna Mukherjee and Davide Quadrio at Artissima, Italy, in 2021; and Patterns of Intensity, curated by Ranjit Hoskote at Art Alive Gallery, Delhi, in 2021. She also participated in a collaborative project with Case Design, which was showcased at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018 Teja has received several accolades, including the Nasreen Mohamedi Award for her MVA display at M.S.U. Baroda in 2014. She was also awarded a Junior Fellowship from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, in 2017-18, and the Space118 Fine Arts Grant in 2020. Her residencies include Space Studio, Baroda (2019); What About Art, Mumbai (2017); Verticale Artist Center, Laval, Canada (2016); Khoj International Artist Association, Delhi (2015); and the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation-supported International (India-Quebec) Residency at The Darling Foundry, Montreal, Canada (2014).
Teja has been teaching design at the Academy of Architecture at Rachana Sansad, Mumbai, for the past eight years.
Teja lives and works in Mumbai.
About The Work
Courtesy of Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai
Teja Gavankar practises the art of turning the familiar into sites of introspection, unlocking the extraordinary in the everyday. She says, “It is neither existence nor non-existence, but an interval between, in which forms were originally present. It is a space of being neither here nor there, of being neither this nor that”.
It takes the form of two cones that partially merge into each other, sharing common elements that shift between them, creating a dynamic and ever-changing experience for viewers. This interaction between the cones symbolizes the non-duality of completeness and incompleteness, ultimately converging to represent the philosophical idea of Advaita, where the maaterial world enters the realm of eternity. Teja Gavankar's work delves into the profound concept of 'neti-neti’, leading viewers to a realization of unity within the infinite expanse of space.