Draft:Vikash Kalra
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Vikash Kalra | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 27, 1973 Kailash Colony, New Delhi, India |
| Citizenship | India |
| Education | Self-taught |
| Known for | Painting, Sculpture, Mixed media |
| Notable work | Ganesha series (stainless steel); Shiva series; We Are Bangalore (2012) |
| Movement | Contemporary art, Neo-Constructivism |
| Website | vikashkalra |
Vikash Kalra (born 27 July 1973) is an Indian contemporary artist and writer based in New Delhi. A self-taught practitioner, he works across painting, sculpture, and mixed media. He is known for his expressionist figurative paintings—marked by bold colour, flattened planes, and psychological intensity—and for his large-scale stainless-steel public sculptures that draw on Indian spiritual iconography. His work is held in private and corporate collections across India and abroad.[1][2]
Kalra began his artistic career in the early 2000s after years spent selling books and art publications from pavement kiosks in Delhi. Largely self-taught, he has cited F. N. Souza, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, and Francis Bacon as formative influences.[3][4] He has exhibited widely in India, and his public installations have been presented at prominent venues including India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, and The Art Square, Aerocity, Delhi.[5]
Early life and education
[edit]Vikash Kalra was born on 27 July 1973 in Kailash Colony, a residential neighbourhood in South Delhi. He was raised in a Hindu family bearing the Kalra surname, common among the Khatri community of northern India. He received his schooling through the Delhi Directorate of Education.[1]
Kalra did not pursue formal training in fine art. Before his artistic career, he worked as a bookseller, running kiosks in various parts of Delhi that stocked titles on art, architecture, and lifestyle. Exposure to art books and magazines through this trade gave him an informal but sustained visual education.[3] He has described how he began painting on the pages of old journals from his stock—a practical necessity that shaped his early relationship with surface and image, and which he has compared to Rabindranath Tagore's practice of painting over manuscript pages.[6]
Career
[edit]Early painting (2000s)
[edit]Kalra began painting seriously in the early 2000s, working without formal instruction. Around 2005, encountering the work of F. N. Souza and Pablo Picasso proved decisive: the fractured figuration, bold line, and psychological directness of both artists became touchstones for his developing practice.[4][7]
His early canvases feature distorted human figures—faces rendered with angular, interlocking planes, bodies that carry both erotic charge and existential weight. Dhoomimal Gallery, one of Delhi's oldest commercial galleries, became a primary exhibiting partner. In 2015 he presented a dedicated tribute exhibition to Picasso and Souza, shown in Delhi and reviewed in The Hindu and Deccan Herald.[1][7]
Notable painting series include more than a hundred portraits of Lord Shiva produced for Dhoomimal Gallery, and a body of work made during the COVID-19 pandemic addressing collective grief and social dislocation.[8][5]
Move into sculpture
[edit]Kalra began working in three dimensions around 2008. His first large-scale sculptural project, We Are Bangalore (2012), comprised figurative works in fiberglass and clay. Though the exhibition generated significant public response, the works did not sell, and were damaged during transport. Kalra has described the experience as deeply discouraging, and he stored the work for approximately three years before returning to sculpture.[5]
Exposure to the built environment of Dubai, Malaysia, and European cities during subsequent travels reawakened his interest in monumental form and durable materials. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns he undertook sustained research into material options, noting that the architectural use of steel in Dubai—as a solution to problems of rust and extreme weather—pointed toward stainless steel as a medium suited both to the Indian climate and to the scale he wished to achieve.[5]
Stainless steel and public sculpture (2020s)
[edit]Working from his Delhi studio, Kalra developed a body of stainless-steel sculpture characterised by what critics have described as a Neo-Constructivist approach: geometric planes and sharp angular intersections that derive from Cubism but are inflected by Indian iconographic traditions. The mirrored surfaces function both formally—activating the surrounding environment within the work—and philosophically, repositioning the viewer's gaze.[6]
In 2023–24 he showed copper high-relief sculptures at Almost Gods, a wearable-art and lifestyle store at Dhan Mills, Delhi. His first large steel sculptures for an institutional venue were exhibited in 2024 at India Habitat Centre under the title Urban Thoughts.[5]
In March 2026, a major outdoor installation, Forged in Steel, was presented by GMR Aerocity in association with Dhoomimal Gallery and HELM Experiential at The Art Square, Aerocity, Delhi. The centrepiece was a stainless-steel Lord Ganesha measuring 145 inches in height and 106 inches in width, depicted seated upon the Sheshnag, the seven-headed cosmic serpent, and performing the Abhaya Mudra. Additional works in the installation included a mother-and-child group left open to Hindu and Christian interpretation, a standing female figure, and a monumental head rendered in Kalra's angular cubistic manner.[5]
Artistic style and influences
[edit]Kalra's painting is rooted in the tradition of figurative expressionism associated with the Progressive Artists' Group—particularly the work of F. N. Souza, with whom he shares an interest in distorted human form, raw sexuality, and spiritual conflict.[4] Like Souza and Picasso, he employs flattened pictorial space, heavy outline, and chromatic boldness. Francis Bacon is a further reference for the psychological intensity of his figures.
In sculpture, Kalra distinguishes between inspiration and influence: inspiration as the impulse to act, influence as the methodological lens. He has described Alberto Giacometti's attenuated figures as both: encountering Giacometti's work led directly to a series of male, female, and animal sculptures that extended his painted figures into three dimensions.[6]
His stainless-steel sculptures engage Indian spiritual iconography—Ganesha, Shiva, the mother-and-child—while subjecting traditional forms to Neo-Constructivist formal treatment: geometric fragmentation, sharp planes, and industrial material. The reflective surface of polished steel introduces an element of audience participation, making each encounter site- and time-specific.
Exhibitions
[edit]Selected solo and major presentations
[edit]| Year | Title | Venue | Medium / Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | We Are Bangalore | Bangalore | Fiberglass and clay sculpture |
| 2015 | Tribute to Picasso & Souza | New Delhi | Painting |
| c. 2015 | Aparajita (Beti Bachao Beti Padhao) | New Delhi | Group show; women's empowerment theme[9] |
| 2023–24 | (copper sculpture) | Almost Gods, Dhan Mills, New Delhi | Copper high-relief |
| 2024 | Urban Thoughts | India Habitat Centre, New Delhi | Stainless steel sculpture |
| 2026 | Forged in Steel | The Art Square, Aerocity, New Delhi | Stainless steel; presented by GMR Aerocity / Dhoomimal Gallery / HELM Experiential[5] |
Social practice
[edit]In 2013 Kalra contributed works to group exhibitions raising awareness of women's empowerment, reviewed in The Hindu.[10] During the COVID-19 pandemic he collaborated with Habitat for Humanity India, producing work in support of communities with limited resources, and participated in a 60-day online fundraising exhibition organised by the Asif Kamal Foundation to benefit flood-affected communities in Bihar.[8][11]
Collections
[edit]Kalra's work is held in a number of private and corporate collections in India. His paintings are offered through Dhoomimal Gallery, New Delhi, and appear in the catalogues of Easel Stories and DRS Fine Arts, among other Indian art platforms.[2]
Personal life
[edit]Kalra lives and works in New Delhi. He has two sons; one is a practising Sarangi artist. He has described a lifelong devotion to Lord Shiva, which has informed several sustained series in his painting and sculpture.[5]
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 Bhanj, Jaideep Deo (3 May 2015). "Self-taught artist's tribute to the masters". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
- 1 2 "Vikas Kalra: Artist Detail Information". dhoomimalgallery.com. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
- 1 2 Vakkalanka, Harshini (1 March 2016). "Art, life and beauty". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
- 1 2 3 "Also playing". Hindustan Times. 12 April 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Maddox, Georgina (23 March 2026). "Forged in Steel: Vikash Kalra Exhibition in Delhi". Abirpothi. Retrieved 24 March 2026.
- 1 2 3 "Neo-Constructivist Sculptures of Vikash Kalra". vikashkalra.com. 5 March 2025.
- 1 2 "A tribute to Picasso, Souza". Deccan Herald. 11 October 2016. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
- 1 2 "Delhi artist Vikash Kalra puts collective pain on multiple canvases". The New Indian Express. 24 October 2020. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
- ↑ "Master strokes". The Hindu. 1 September 2015. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
- ↑ Tankha, Madhur (5 March 2013). "Artists vouch for woman power". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
- ↑ "60-day online art show to raise funds for flood-affected Bihar". The New Indian Express. 24 August 2020. Retrieved 22 March 2021.