The moments that made the artist

CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS

“Every creative life has an origin—and a moment that made them.”

Tallur L.N.

Laxmi Narayan Tallur, professionally known as Tallur L.N., is a preeminent Indian conceptual artist whose work serves as a profound dialogue between traditional iconography and the relentless march of industrialization. Born in 1971 in Koteswara, Karnataka, Tallur’s practice is deeply rooted in his academic foundation at M.S. University, Baroda, yet it transcends borders as he divides his creative life between India and South Korea.

His practice is defined by large-scale sculptures and site-specific installations that fuse classical bronze and stone with modern machinery, concrete, and industrial waste. Through works like the celebrated Highway Nirvana, Tallur critiques the intersections of consumerism, ecology, and spirituality, questioning our perception of permanence in a disposable age. A global force in contemporary art, he has showcased his visionary installations at prestigious venues including the Venice Biennale, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and the Mori Art Museum, cementing his reputation as a master of material storytelling.

Vinod Bhardwaj

Vinod Bhardwaj: A Multidisciplinary Cultural Luminary

Born in Lucknow in 1948, Vinod Bhardwaj is a distinguished psychologist, journalist, and filmmaker whose career spans over five decades of profound cultural leadership. A versatile independent curator and critic, he first established his voice co-editing the literary journal Aarambh and serving as the features editor for Navbharat Times. As a prolific author, he has a creative breadth that includes acclaimed poetry and novels such as Seppuku and Sachcha Jhooth, both published in English by HarperCollins.

Bhardwaj’s scholarly contributions to the art world are seminal, most notably the art encyclopedia Brihad Adhunik Kala Kosh and extensive monographs on masters like F.N. Souza and A. Ramachandran. His documentary films on iconic figures like Jogen Chowdhury and Krishen Khanna are celebrated for their archival depth and experimental vision. Most recently, his 2025 centenary volume on F.N. Souza for the historic Dhoomimal Gallery reaffirms his lifelong dedication to documenting and elevating South Asian contemporary art.

Vicky Roy

Vicky Roy is one of India’s most compelling contemporary photographers, defined not only by the images he captures but by a life transformed into a powerful visual narrative. Born in Purulia, West Bengal, Roy’s trajectory is extraordinary: after running away from home as a child, he survived on the streets of New Delhi before finding a turning point through the Salaam Baalak Trust. It was here that photography provided him with a newfound sense of direction, discipline, and authorship.

Roy refined his craft at Triveni Kala Sangam and later in New York, developing an internationally recognized practice centered on memory, dignity, and human resilience. His work is inseparable from his personal history; he does not merely observe his subjects from a distance but photographs from a place of lived understanding and deep empathy. Today, Vicky Roy stands as a singular example of how adversity can be transmuted into a profound artistic language and a lasting cultural voice.

Maja Ćirić

Marine Tanguy is a British–French art entrepreneur and author, best known as the founder and CEO of MTArt Agency, a talent agency that helps exceptional contemporary artists build sustainable, global careers. She works at the intersection of art, culture, and business—connecting artists with museums, brands, collectors, and institutions while protecting the integrity of their work. Tanguy is also the author of The Visual Detox, a practical, culture-driven guide to reclaiming attention and building a healthier relationship with the images and media that shape our minds every day.

Her public work often centers on making art more accessible to wider audiences, championing emerging voices, and reframing creativity as a public good—not a luxury. Through curatorial projects, partnerships, and talks, she advocates for artists as vital cultural forces and for art as a tool that can spark empathy, reflection, and real-world change.

Maja Ćirić, PhD, is a distinguished independent curator and art critic whose practice interrogates the intersection of global power, technology, and contemporary culture. With a focus on the "geopolitics of curating," Ćirić explores how infrastructural and planetary-scale computation shapes modern visibility. Since 2020, her research has focused on multipolar geopolitics and "phygital" exhibition formats, examining artists' agency in hybrid physical-digital spaces.

Her international standing is marked by significant leadership roles, including serving as the curator of the Serbian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2007) and its commissioner in 2013. Beyond Venice, she has developed numerous biennials and discursive platforms across Europe, earning prestigious curatorial awards for her critical engagement with emerging art scenes. A frequent contributor to international art publications, Ćirić remains a vital voice in defining the role of curatorial practice within rapidly shifting technological and geopolitical paradigms.

Marine Tanguy

Daniele Galliano

Daniele Galliano (born 1961 in Pinerolo) is an acclaimed, self-taught Italian painter based in Turin, widely associated with the “new Italian painting” scene and known for a form of “photographic realism” that often uses amateur photography as a blueprint to examine modern social interaction, mass identity, and the individual’s relationship to contemporary society. His career highlights include participation in the Venice Biennale, the Havana Biennial, and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Over time, his work has expanded from intimate, tightly framed scenes to broader social and political subjects, including migration, conflict, and religious radicalism. His paintings are held in major public and private collections, including GAM - Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea.

G.R. Iranna

G.R. Iranna (b. 1970) is a distinguished contemporary Indian artist known for his quasi-abstract and philosophical works that explore human vulnerability and the transience of life. Born in Karnataka, he received his early education at a traditional Gurukul, which deeply influenced his spiritual and meditative style. He earned his MFA from the College of Art, New Delhi, and later served as an artist-in-residence at Wimbledon School of Art, London. Iranna frequently employs unconventional materials like ash, charcoal, and brick dust on tarpaulin, creating textured layers that symbolize the cycle of life and death. A major career milestone was representing India at the 2019 Venice Biennale with his installation Naavu. Recipient of the National Award (1997) and the ABPF Signature Art Prize (2008), he has works held in prestigious collections, including the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Singapore Art Museum.

Ismet Jonuzi

Ismet Jonuzi (born 1961) is an acclaimed Albanian sculptor and multimedia artist from Kosovo. He creates provocative sculptures from weapons associated with the Kosovo War, transforming instruments of destruction into anthropomorphic forms that explore trauma, memory, and his homeland’s “wounded soul.” Education and style: Largely self-taught in Pristina and shaped through residencies, he reworks rifles and spent casings into human figures that symbolize post-war resilience. Key exhibitions: His work has been featured at the Venice Biennale, Manifesta, and Kosovo’s National Gallery. In works such as Weapons of Peace, he fuses war relics with a poetic humanism. Recent focus: Working from bases in Kosovo and across Europe, he increasingly integrates video and sound to build narratives of reconciliation that connect the Balkans to global contemporary art..

Laura Gowen

Laura Gowen: Visionary Leadership in Contemporary Art

Laura Gowen is the esteemed founder and director of Gowen, a premier contemporary art gallery based in Geneva, Switzerland. Since co-founding the space in 2009 and becoming its sole owner in 2010, she has guided the institution's evolution into Gowen Contemporary, a powerhouse of international artistic dialogue. Under her strategic leadership, the gallery has developed a rigorous program that champions pioneering artists known for their experimental and critically engaged practices.

Gowen’s curatorial philosophy is rooted in inclusion, diversity, and a boundless openness to all media, seamlessly blending cutting-edge contemporary voices with select historical works from private collections. A frequent presence at major global art fairs, the gallery recently made a significant impact at the India Art Fair with the works of Giuliano Macca. As she prepares for Art Paris in April 2026, Laura Gowen continues to solidify her reputation as a vital bridge between experimental artistry and the global collector community.

Paula Klien

Paula Klien (born 1968, Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and writing. Her work is grounded in a close observation of time, moving between past and future, ruin and beauty, presence and absence. She explores fragility, impermanence, and the threshold between control and rupture, quietly investigating memory and the possibilities of destiny.
From an early age, Klien developed a heightened sensitivity to gestures, atmospheres, and non-verbal language, which became the foundation of her artistic practice. Her career gained prominence in photography between 2004 and 2014, and later expanded into the visual arts, painting with Chinese ink and water, and pioneering crypto art in Brazil. In recent years, she has also entered the literary world with her debut novel Todas as Minhas Mortes (2024).

Vinod Daroz

Vinod Daroz (born 1972 in Kalwakurthy, Telangana) is a prominent Indian contemporary ceramic artist known for transforming clay from a utilitarian medium into a sophisticated language of artistic expression. Style and innovation: His works fuse traditional Indian pottery techniques with modern abstraction—organic forms, textured surfaces, and earthy glazes—that evoke nature's cycles, memory, and cultural roots. Process and themes: Hand-building large-scale vessels and installations, Daroz experiments with fire, smoke, and natural pigments to create cracked, weathered patinas symbolizing time's impermanence and resilience. Exhibitions and acclaim: Featured in Delhi's Triveni Kala Sangam and in Mumbai galleries, and in national ceramics biennales; his pieces grace private collections and highlight Telangana's artisanal heritage on the global stage.

Allison Watkins

Allison was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and is an MFA graduate of San Francisco State University and a BFA graduate of San Jose State University. Her works have been shown in exhibitions at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Camerawork, The Print Center (Philadelphia, PA), Adobe Books Gallery (SF), Chandra Cerrito Contemporary (Oakland, CA), The Textile Arts Center (NYC), and the Napa Valley Museum, among others. Allison's work was selected by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art curator Janet Bishop for inclusion in New American Paintings issue 109, and she has been an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito.

Andrea Pinchia

Andrea Pinchi (Italian, born 1967) is known for his unique "Pincbau" technique, which involves creating mixed-media artworks using salvaged materials from his family’s long-standing tradition of pipe organ building. Style and process: He assembles wooden pipes, metal components, and organ fragments into textured, sculptural reliefs that evoke sound, resonance, and mechanical harmony—transforming liturgical relics into abstract, sonic landscapes. Themes: Pinchi's works explore memory, craftsmanship, and the intersection of sacred music with contemporary abstraction, layering patinaed elements to suggest echoes of time and ritual. Exhibitions: Featured in Italian galleries, Vatican collections, and European art fairs; his innovative reuse of organ parts has drawn acclaim for bridging musical heritage with visual art.

Karel Stoop

Karel Stoop: The Architecture of Infinite Being

Karel Stoop, born in 1951, is a Dutch abstract painter whose large-scale works serve as meditative gateways into the cosmos. Expanding his practice in the Netherlands, Stoop moved beyond traditional forms to embrace a post-1970s intuitive style, in which painting en plein air allows him to capture the raw, fleeting essence of existential themes.

His technique is a performative dialogue between spontaneity and depth, utilizing bold, layered gestural marks to explore the "state of being." Through a vivid palette—where deep blues evoke the infinite and turbulent reds signal internal conflict—Stoop translates life’s mysteries into immersive visual experiences. A recurring presence in Amsterdam and Art Rotterdam, his work continues to captivate collectors seeking transcendence through the power of Dutch abstraction.

EPVS: The Art of Experimental Storytelling

Elena P. V. Sanseverino, widely recognized by her artistic moniker EPVS, is a versatile contemporary artist whose practice bridges her German origins with the vibrant cultural landscape of Rome. Her work is defined by a restless experimentalism, traversing various media to engage deeply with the fluidity of memory, the precision of form, and the layers of human storytelling.

A prominent figure in the Italian contemporary art scene, EPVS has cultivated a significant institutional presence through her evocative installations and thought-provoking compositions. Her career highlights include prestigious solo exhibitions at Rome’s Museo Bilotti and Museo MACRO, as well as landmark shows at Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto and Palazzo della Penna in Perugia. Through her evolving aesthetic, EPVS continues to challenge the boundaries of contemporary expression, making her a vital voice in European art.

Elena P. V. Sanseverino

Viraj Naik

Viraj Naik (b. 1975) is a contemporary Indian artist based in Goa, best known for his whimsical and surreal figurative works that blend human and animal forms. Style and themes: His vibrant paintings fuse mythology, folklore, and dreamlike narratives—hybrids like bird-headed figures or beastly humans—exploring identity, desire, and the primal subconscious with playful yet uncanny energy. Key series: Works like "Animal Kingdom" and "The Lovers" feature bold colors, intricate patterns, and fluid morphing shapes, drawing on Goan culture and global surrealism, as well as the complexities of the human psyche.

Jagmohan Bangani

Jagmohan Bangani: The Luminosity of Himalayan Mysticism

Jagmohan Bangani is an acclaimed visual artist from Uttarakhand whose practice serves as a luminous bridge between contemporary art and ancient Vedic philosophy. Deeply rooted in the spiritual heritage of the Himalayas, Bangani’s work is a profound exploration of contemplation, positivity, and sacred themes. His signature style is defined by an ethereal palette, where intricate mandalas and stylized deities emerge from atmospheric landscapes designed to evoke a state of meditative peace.

Through a meticulous process involving oils, acrylics, and mixed media, Bangani employs meditative layering, often incorporating delicate glazing and gold leaf to achieve a divine sense of depth. A frequent presence in major Delhi galleries and international art fairs, his work is highly sought after for wellness spaces and private collections, standing as a testament to the uplifting power of mountain-inspired mysticism.

S.D. Hari Prasad

S.D. Hari Prasad is a renowned Indian sculptor based in Hyderabad, known for blending traditional stone carving with modern, machine-assisted techniques. His work explores themes of continuity, nature, and mythology, often featuring abstract, geometric forms. He has received the National Award from the Lalit Kala Akademi. the complexities of the human psyche

Anjaneyulu G

Anjaneyulu G: The Soul of Everyday Objects

Anjaneyulu G is a masterful Indian contemporary artist whose hyper-realistic oil paintings elevate the mundane into the monumental. Born in 1976 and based in Hyderabad, he centers his practice on the profound transformation of simple, everyday household items—such as weathered steel vessels, vintage lanterns, and worn tea kettles.

By isolating these objects against minimalist, often stark backgrounds, Anjaneyulu strips away the noise of the modern world, forcing the viewer to confront the quiet dignity of the utilitarian. His meticulous attention to light, texture, and reflection turns cold metal and glass into iconic symbols of memory and nostalgia. Through his lens, a common kitchen utensil becomes a sacred vessel of personal history and cultural identity.algia