Yuriko Lochan with Dr. Rajeev Lochan

Shailaja Art Gallery presents The Contemporary Lore: Sojourn of Styles and Generations Unfurled, an exhibition that challenges our understanding of artistic genealogy in contemporary practice.Rather than archive art history, this exhibition, now at Shailaja Art Gallery in Gurgaon, stages a lively conversation – bringing together 23 artists at different career stages, formal vocabularies and conceptual concerns. The result is a period piece where the decades-long meditations of an experienced practitioner sit alongside the experiments of an emerging artist, illuminating each other.

Shailja Jain, Founder and Director, Shailja Art Gallery

Kiran K., with a critical essay by art historian Johnny M.L. Compiled by Mohan, The Contemporary Lore works on a simple but fundamental premise: artistic genealogy is not linear, and the most creative conversations happen when we stop organizing by age or achievement, and instead listen to resonance by time, content, and intention. Speaking about the show, Kiran K. This collection of artworks on display is not only about the skill of the artists, but it is also about the conversations it starts, Mohan said. Every artist is looking for an appropriate language through their artistic decisions in choosing their medium.” The exhibition includes works of Anil Gaikwad. Ashok Bhowmik Asit Patnaik Bharti Prajapati Bipin Kumar Charudatta Dilip Sharma Haren Thakur Harshvardhan Devtale Hemraj Jaikrishna Agarwal Manoj Kumar Aggarwal Milan Das Meenakshi Jha Banerjee Mukesh Bijole Nilisha Phad | Pandurang Thatte Prem Singh Rakhi Kumar Sanjay K. Srivastava Shekhar Kar Shaji Appukuttan Joseph

Curator Kiran K Mohan

The showcase includes paintings, sculptures and mixed media – each work selected for the specificity of its investigation. What emerges is a portrait of how contemporary artists across India are thinking afresh about material, form, depiction, abstraction and identity.Visitors encountered senior artists whose practice spans decades of experimentation, mid-career practitioners navigating institutional and personal transitions, emerging voices bringing new urgency to long-standing artistic problems at Bikaner House. The exhibition now continues in the gallery. Shailja Jain, founder and director of Shailja Art Gallery, said, “By presenting these 23 practices together – not hierarchical, not contextualized by career stage, but as equal participants in a larger artistic conversation – we are making visible the connective tissue of contemporary practice. The Indian art landscape has long been dominated by the same rotation of masters. But a metamorphosis is underway, as contemporary giants are increasingly leaving their mark. The next generation of artists is ready to find their footing, yet they are being held back due to existing geographical and socio-political constraints. Shailaja Art Gallery believes they deserve equal attention – and The Contemporary Lore is here to give it. This dialogue between experience and evolving vision is what gives the show its unique depth.”

Sajal Patra, Prayag Shukla and Varun Jain

Contemporary scholarship comes at a specific moment: when the Indian art world is increasingly fragmented by market categories (emerging, mid-career, established), geography, medium. This exhibition proposes a different organizing principle – one based on artistic rigor and conceptual generosity rather than commercial or institutional convenience.By bringing these 23 artists into conversation, Shailaja Art Gallery asks: What if we reorganized how we view contemporary art – not on the basis of individual achievement, but on the basis of shared artistic questions and material concerns? The preview evening was attended by many eminent guests including Dr. Rajeev Lochan, Uma Jain, Prayag Shukla, Sushma Bahl, Biman Das, Kalicharan Gupta, Varun Jain, Taslima Nasreen, Sajal Patra, Johnny ML.