Walk into most galleries and the art waits for you. Framed, lit, labelled, at a respectful distance. Spatial Dialogues, the inaugural exhibition at The Collectors Room by Artiform, is not doing any of that.
Curated by Isaiarasi Annamalai, the exhibition brings together four artists —Bhagwan Chavan, Dilipkumar Kesavan, Jacob Jebaraj, and Pravin Kannanur — whose works have been placed not merely in a space but in active conversation with it. “There is a kind of spatial rhythm being created with the artwork and the interior itself. It’s not just a work placed over here. There is a conversation going on along with the interior around it,” says Isaiarasi.
The four artists interpret abstraction in their own way. Bhagwan Chavan works with urban memory, building layers of colour that are quiet on the surface and restless underneath. Dilipkumar Kesavan takes his daily coastal drive to his Mahabalipuram studio as inspiration, observing the palms, shells, and fabrics. He then incorporates them into fluid, instinctive compositions.
Jacob Jebaraj approaches his canvases as an environmentalist as much as an artist—making natural pigments from plant sources, working with recycled materials, and bringing narrative and ecological themes into abstract forms. Pravin Kannanur brings large-scale work that Isai describes in musical terms: “It creates like a rhythm, a music mode that is inside the work itself. It creates that kind of transformation to the entire space.”
The Collectors Room by Artiform is not a standalone gallery but a space built into Artiform’s bespoke furniture showroom in Mylapore—a brand founded on the belief that Indian design has always been too rich, too intricate, too full of regional craft and cultural specificity to be flattened into European minimalism. The Collectors Room is an extension of that conviction into the cultural sphere: a platform for exhibitions, artist collaborations, and the ongoing argument that contemporary art and everyday living are not separate concerns.
“Art is not just a placement of works in a place,” says Isaiarasi. “When they visit the show, they will understand how much art plays along with the interior in a living space.”
Free entry. On till July 20. 11 am to 7 pm. At Artiform, Mylapore.
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