Curatorial note - The Presence of Absence 

Humans have always sought comfort in form. We trace shapes in clouds, find faces in shadows, and read meaning into patterns. But when form is stripped away, we are unmoored. We search for symmetry, we try to rebuild what has been denied. Abstraction reminds us that perception is elastic, that the eye can unlearn and the mind can see beyond the constraints of form. 

How, then, do we speak of absence? If the figure is gone, what remains? Perhaps it is the presence of absence that invites us to see ourselves anew, to dwell in the space beyond representation and image. The distillation of shapes, forms, and structures drawn from reality embodies the “abstract”. In this realm, imagination crystallises into formlessness and thought finds rhythm beyond the familiar. Here we find revelation through deprivation, the hidden meanings and structures that underpin perception itself. 

Abstraction in the Indian subcontinent emerged as a genre in its own right. Unlike its Western counterpart, which sought to liberate painting from the confines of recognisable form, Indian abstraction evolved through an inward gaze. It was rooted in centuries of philosophy, symbolism, and metaphysical inquiry. In the 1950s and ’60s, as the nation wrestled with post-independence identity and the remnants of colonial influence, artists turned to abstraction to express an authentic “Indianness.” This was not imitation but introspection; a search for a visual language that could embody the pulse of a newly independent, culturally complex nation. 

Many artists and critics grew increasingly aware of the perils of replicating Western modernism and sought instead to articulate an Indian sensibility. At the heart of this search lay ancient Indian philosophy: the concept of shunya, or zero, representing not merely a numerical invention but a profound metaphor for infinity within nothingness. Early rituals that described the golden embryo (hiranyagarbha) as the source of all creation, or the personification of Shakti as divine feminine energy, already contained the seeds of abstraction. Tantric symbols, yantras, and chakras offered a geometric language of meditation. Triangles, circles, and mandalas symbolised cosmic balance, unity, and the eternal cycle of life and death. These forms became the visual grammar of Indian abstraction, distinct from Western ideologies yet universally resonant.

Artists such as S. H. Raza, V. S. Gaitonde, and Prabhakar Barwe drew from these deep reservoirs of thought. Within the Neo-Tantric movement initiated by K. C. S. Paniker, their work merged spiritual philosophy with modern form. Raza’s Bindu became a metaphor for the infinite Brahmand, the still point of all creation; Paniker wove Tamil and Sanskrit scripts, floor drawings, and rural crafts into abstraction, creating a language that was both ancient and new.

As Geeta Kapur observed, “We developed a quiet, almost quiescent aesthetic. The figure was withdrawn from the work of some of the major Indian artists, leaving behind the merest signs of human presence in nature.” Abstraction here was not the absence of form; it was the revelation of what lay beneath it.

By the 1970s and beyond, Indian abstraction had evolved beyond symbols into visceral reflections of place and memory. Ram Kumar’s landscapes of Banaras, for instance, dissolve the city into meditative expanses of colour, evolving as spiritual rather than literal. Viswanadhan’s restrained palette and geometry echo the red earth of Kerala, his birthplace, grounding abstraction in soil and memory. Krishna Reddy, working in Paris, transformed printmaking through his innovative viscosity technique, layering colour to evoke the organic rhythm of nature and the human figure alike.

Women artists such as Nasreen Mohamedi and Zarina carried abstraction inward, transforming it into a deeply personal, intellectual, and poetic pursuit. Mohamedi’s fine lines and measured rhythms translated the essence of wind, light, and solitude into a visual form of meditation. Her drawings broke the rigidity of the grid, instead creating fluid, breathing geometries that expanded and contracted like thought itself. Zarina, meanwhile, used the language of maps and architectural plans to examine belonging, displacement, and the fragility of home. Her series Maps, Homes and Itineraries reimagined cityscapes as cartographies of memory and loss. In Delhi and later works, she turned abstraction into autobiography, echoing Mahmoud Darwish’s words: “I don’t have enough time to tie my end to my beginning.”

Indian abstraction thus resists categorisation. It is not an imitation of Western modernism, nor a retreat into mysticism. It is an articulation of being; a visual philosophy that merges thought, spirit, and form. From the bindu to the line, from the geometry of faith to the poetics of absence, abstraction in India continues to reveal that what appears formless is, in truth, the most complete expression of form.

This show asserts that abstraction is vital to opening spaces for reflection, intuition, and access to the unseen facets of experience. Embedded in geometries, grids, and colour fields are the stories we don't even know we tell ourselves, questions we didn't even know to ask. Abstract art isn't that which stops before the creation of form; it is art that transcends beyond known structures. It makes us uncomfortable, perplexed enough to ponder on underlying meanings. While expanding the horizons of our imagination, it also gives us boundless space to perceive, to visualise and believe what we individually deem fit. An artwork in the realm of abstraction becomes a playground of imagination and creativity, where the pressure of intellectual pursuit ceases to exist.

In that context, The Presence of Absence is an invitation to dwell in the ether, to lose oneself in formlessness, to find the meaning that emerges not from what is shown, but from what is withheld. A fresh exploration of the possibilities of absentia.