Two concurrent solo exhibitions at Aicon Contemporary in New York are showcasing the unique dynamics of artistic partnership between married artists Jagannath Panda and Pranati Panda. For the first time in their nearly three decades of artistic practice, the couple is presenting individual shows side by side, demonstrating how partnership and individuality can coexist in today's Indian art scene. The exhibitions, titled "Thresholds of the Elsewhere" by Jagannath Panda and "Weaving What We Carry" by Pranati Panda, opened on September 3 and run through October 4.
The concept of artist couples creating immortal art together has a rich history in the art world. The most endearing example is perhaps Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who created a single artistic identity for their collaborative works. Both American artists were born on the same day, June 13, 1935 – he in Bulgaria, she in Morocco – and became renowned for their large-scale, site-specific installations. Christo continued creating under their joint name even after Jeanne-Claude's death in 2009, until his own passing in 2020.
Similar artistic partnerships have flourished throughout history, including famous Western couples like Françoise Gilot and Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock. India also boasts its share of such partnerships, though they may not receive the same level of celebration. Notable Indian artist couples practicing in contemporary times include veterans Gulammohammed Sheikh and Neelima Sheikh, Manu and Madhavi Parekh, as well as younger contemporaries like Atul and Anju Dodiya, and Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher.
Jagannath Panda expressed his feelings about sharing this milestone with his wife: "It is truly special to share this moment with Pranati. We both have had long, individual journeys, but our practices have always existed in dialogue with one another. To present our solos side by side in New York is not only a celebration of our individual voices but also of the companionship and support that have carried us forward as artists and as a couple." He emphasized that this exhibition emerged organically from their long relationship with the gallery and their desire to bring together their practices in resonance, yet in distinction.
Pranati Panda shared her gratitude for the opportunity: "Having our exhibitions side by side is like holding a mirror to our shared life but from two very different directions. Our art speaks differently, yet it is nourished by the same soil of lived experiences."
Born in Bhubaneswar and based in New Delhi, Jagannath Panda ranks among India's top contemporary artists. He is renowned for simultaneously exploring the collision and coalescence of nature and humanity through his intricately detailed mixed-media paintings, drawings, and sculptures. His practice can be characterized as one of the most successful contemporary explorations of contradiction in art. In his current exhibition, "Thresholds of the Elsewhere," he delves deeper to reflect on fractured times in what appears to be a gradual yet firm evolution of his practice.
Through works that appear more layered and ambitious, Jagannath continues to explore contradiction but with a deepened sense of internal balance that acknowledges dissonance without being overwhelmed by it. "Contradiction is where I began my journey as an artist, living between the mythic landscapes of Odisha and the fragmented realities of the urban world. That tension shaped me, and it still does. My engagement with contradiction is not about resolving it but about holding it, allowing utopia and disorder to coexist in the same frame," Panda explains.
His inspiration draws from multiple sources beyond fellow artists, including Indian cities, folk traditions, and philosophy. "Artists like Bhupen Khakhar and Nalini Malani have been important references, as are the oral tales and rituals of Odisha, where joy and melancholy live side by side," adds Panda, who holds a BFA from BK College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar, an MFA in Sculpture from MS University, Baroda, and another MFA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Arts, London.
In his ongoing exhibition, Jagannath has created works that surprise viewers with their seamless blend of symbols representing humanity, machinery, and nature within the same frame, creating what can be distinctly called an aesthetic conflation. The disparate elements maintain their individual identities while the sum of the parts remains dominant and visually pleasing. For instance, in the mixed media work "Echoes of the Microcosm II," he shows cellular entities arranged in harmony with natural elements like clouds, yet intersected by a thick, steely line that can be interpreted as an anthropogenic footprint.
By blending industrial aesthetics with those of Mughal art and architecture, Panda creates the epitome of conflation. Similarly, "The Unseen Rhythm," a circular mixed media work measuring 43.5 inches in both height and width, represents exactly what its title suggests – a visually poetic expression of the rhythm that governs our planet, constantly adjusting its cycle in response to new environmental stresses induced in the Anthropocene. With more rhythm and less cacophony, Jagannath's work has reached a new level with this exhibition, where some of the most distinctive pieces blend his contemporary aesthetic with recognizable elements of Mughal art, such as uniquely stylized clouds and the eight-pointed star commonly seen in Mughal monuments like Akbar's tomb in Sikandra, a suburb of Agra.
While Jagannath's kaleidoscopes are entrancing, Pranati's works, largely tactile and featuring a predominant yet unobtrusive use of red across various materials, immediately capture attention. Her works are more intimate, internal, and personal in nature compared to Jagannath's, as they venture into spaces of blood, relationships, and connections. Pranati is known for working slowly and intuitively with materials that are light and intimate: cloth, net, glue, and paint.
According to the gallery, her works in this exhibition exist in a space between tension and tenderness, where mesh and netting provide structure while simultaneously allowing thread to spill through in a symbolic act of resisting containment. "For me, thread and textile are natural languages. Thread is not just a material. It is a thought, an emotion, a memory stretched into form. Again and again, my work returns to the red thread: a lifeline, a pulse, a soft tether to what lies beneath the surface," Pranati explains.
She continues: "It resembles blood: not only as a symbol of life, but as an index of vulnerability, connection, and the quiet endurance of the self. In my hands, thread becomes an extension of the body, winding and unwinding like breath, like memory, like time." While a work like "Play House of the Mind" – created with watercolor, ink, thread, and glue on handmade paper – evokes images of relationships, unions, and procreation through its fluid and aqueous red, "Shades of Sunrise," made with aluminum net, PU paint, fabric, and thread, comments on how all of these elements impact the mind, thereby influencing the growth of temporal human connections.
The innovative use of fabric as small globular beads on spider bodies in "Becoming I" and "Becoming II" attests to Pranati's meditative practice. The long limbs of spiders in these works evoke the most famous artistic spider in the world, "Maman" by French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), a 30-foot-high creature in steel and bronze stationed at multiple locations worldwide, including the Tate Modern in London and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
It comes as no surprise that Pranati mentions Bourgeois among the artists she considers important. "Artists like Louise Bourgeois, Frida Kahlo, Eva Hesse have been important to me, but so have everyday women whose stories rarely enter history," says Pranati, who is also a graduate of BK College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar, and holds an MFA from the College of Art, New Delhi.
The visceral nature of Pranati's works instantly imbues them with a feminist tone, which is not belligerent but rather a statement of facts. "It is impossible to escape gender; it enters my work not as an agenda but as a lived truth. The dilemmas women artists face – between visibility and invisibility, between tradition and freedom – resonate with me. However, I do not see myself limited to women's issues. My practice moves between the deeply personal and the universal," she explains. "For me, gender is not a constraint but a lens; it allows me to speak of endurance, moment, memory, and survival in ways that are both intimate and expansive."
While these two solo shows spotlight two very distinctive practices within Indian art, together they also provide insight into the concerns that contemporary Indian artists are addressing. Jagannath observes: "The contemporary Indian art scene is vibrant, restless, and constantly negotiating with history. My generation has had to carry the legacies of modern masters of the 1940s-60s, but instead of being intimidated, I think we have been energized."
He adds: "Our concerns have shifted: we are dealing with globalization, ecological collapse, migration, gender, identity, and the pressures of urban growth. Many artists of my generation draw from tradition but reimagine it for fractured times. The political climate inevitably enters our work, but often through layered symbols rather than direct commentary. The lasting impact, I believe, will be in the multiplicity of voices: how we have expanded the map of Indian art beyond one dominant narrative."
It is precisely this multiplicity of narratives in Indian art that these two solo shows underline, as well as the harmony that remains possible despite divergent views and practices. This serves as a vital lesson in a world where all things, including personal relationships, have become increasingly transactional, ephemeral, and disruptive. The Pandas' concurrent exhibitions demonstrate that artistic partnership can flourish while maintaining individual creative identities, offering hope for sustained collaboration in an increasingly fragmented world.
