London artist Naira Mushtaqs debut Delhi exhibition gives a glimpse into British Raj ethnography through art

Who are we when we are seen through someone else’s eyes—through a lens or a brushstroke? For years, artists have grappled with the self, with how we are seen and remembered. At London-based artist Naira Mushtaq’s first solo exhibition in India ‘The Subject is the Subject’, at Delhi’s Pristine Contemporary, these questions find a renewed urgency. Working with found photographs from the colonial era, Mushtaq unpacks what it means to inherit a history of being observed—and reimagines it on her own terms.

Here's what you need to know about Naira Mushtaq's debut exhibition in New Delhi

The title of the show is a wordplay on the idea of “the subject”—once the British subjects of colonial rule, now subjects captured through a photographer’s lens, and ultimately, through Mushtaq’s artistic gaze. The show features 12 canvases, dated from the 1930s to 1970s, each telling a story of the unknown—people who may still be alive, or long gone.

An artist of Pakistani descent, Mushtaq’s practice is shaped by an education steeped in colonial legacy. “I went to a convent school, followed by an art school whose principal was once the English artist Lockwood Kipling,” she says. Later, at Central Saint Martins in London, she encountered what she describes as a “white, Western-centric” curriculum. “I was being typecast to project a stereotype of a brown woman; there was no intersectionality,” she adds. Her work now pushes back against the Western canon, embracing South Asian visual traditions and decolonising inherited narratives through paint and memory.

The tricks of memory

In a time when identity is often self-curated online, Mushtaq’s practice asks what it means to reclaim identity from images we didn’t choose. Her portraits feel hauntingly familiar—like family portraits of our parents, grandparents, or their siblings at our homes, with perfectly combed hair, crisp outfits, and that composed stillness, waiting to be captured through the lens of the cameraman.

Mushtaq says this familiarity is no accident. She wants viewers to experience what she calls the “fallacy of memory.” She says, “These strangers could very well be your family members, but you never know. I am as much a stranger to these paintings as the viewer is, yet they are incredibly familiar to both of us. I pick out threads of my memories and weave them into the paintings—and then the viewer does the same.”

Similarly, the figures in her work are ambiguous—their faces almost illegible, blurred, with only eyes or noses offering the faintest hint of identity. “None of the features are sharp, because they are lost in time. There’s an ambiguity and mystery because you’re looking back into time,” says founder gallerist Arjun Sawhney.

In some pieces, only fragments remain: a pair of feet without a face, or a posture suspended mid-gesture. “We are a product of collective memory, so deliberate ambiguity allows the viewer to place themselves within the work,” says Mushtaq. “It allows me to question identity as we shift our gaze between what is there and what is not—whether it is private or public, object or subject, observed or observant.”

Yet Mushtaq’s works are not mere recreations of old photographs. She reimagines old sepia photos by adding colour, Urdu text, and invented backdrops. In one canvas, she inserts a blue Vespa beside four women in saris, standing by a coconut tree and snow-capped mountains. In another, she fabricates props like televisions—that never existed in the colonial era, to surround a portrait of a family.

Reclaiming the gaze

The portraits also challenge and dismantle the colonial gaze—one built on hierarchy, classification, and control. In reworking archival images, Mushtaq builds a counter-archive —one that reframes subjects with care, ambiguity, and agency.

“As part of my research for ‘The Subject is the Subject’, I looked at ethnographic documentation from the British Ra—catalogues detailing tradespeople, their professions, and, of course, Britishers posing next to ‘servants,’” she explains. “These photographs were often taken in elaborate studios, surrounded by signifiers of wealth. That language of power and status is something I’ve carried forward in the show.”

While the works critique the imperial gaze, they also hold a mirror to the present. “These hierarchies are still deeply ingrained in our day-to-day lives and are part of our neo-colonial societies,” she says.

Delhi carries deep scars of Partition and the aftershocks of the British Empire, with many neighbourhoods shaped by displacement, memory, and longing. Founder gallerist Arjun Butani points out that showing ‘The Subject is the Subject’ in Delhi feels especially poignant. “The remnants of colonial India—its architecture, institutions, and cultural echoes—may be relics of the past, yet are active participants in the city’s present. They stand as a testament to what was, and what continues to evolve,” says Sawhney. Butani adds, “Her practice honours how South Asia has absorbed, reinterpreted, and reshaped Western philosophies through its own lens.”

‘The Subject is the Subject’ is on view at Gallery Pristine Contemporary, Saini Bhavan, Kotla Mubarakpur, until 28 June, 10.30 am to 6 pm

This article is written by Adithi Reena Ajith

For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.