Sifr: Gunjan Chawla Kumar's solo exhibition in Delhi explores metaphysical themes

New Delhi’s Exhibit 320 is set to host Sifr, a solo exhibition by Chicago-based artist, scholar, and educator Gunjan Chawla Kumar. Opening on Friday, November 28, 2025, and on view until January 5, 2026, the show, curated by Anushka Rajendran, offers an extensive body of work exploring profound metaphysical themes through the elemental nature of matter.

The exhibit offers an element of stillness and movement

The exhibition's title, Sifr (Zero), defines the core conceptual space—a rebellious figure that simultaneously "denies and claims totality", embodying both void and vessel. Gunjan's work reflects her deep, two-year engagement with material histories, which involved extensive travel across India and South Asia to study archaeological sites, indigenous crafts, and traditional textiles.

Gunjan presents over 60 pieces in muslin, paper, and pigment, distilling a complex personal and conceptual journey. Her practice merges influences from String Theory, Sufism, and non-Western philosophy with primary forms like the cone, whose spiralling structure inherently embodies movement.

The artist shared her perspective on the material process: “Sifr, for me, is the point where material and spirit collapse into one another,” says Gunjan. “It is an attempt to listen to matter at its most elemental: pigment, earth, fibre, and to allow each gesture to reveal what lies between presence and erasure.”

The show features work created with natural pigments, handwoven cotton, clay from North India, and river sediments from Chicago. Curator Anushka Rajendran notes that in a practice where the artist’s process supersedes the art object, the work finds articulation in a series where "missing parts find themselves in the other to form a whole."

Reflecting a world in flux, Gunjan uses repetition as a conceptual device for both resistance and renewal. The works abstract materials like turmeric, indigo, and vermilion—materials traditionally rooted in gendered domestic labour—into pure pigment. Their transformation into abstract forms reveals the "restless, uncontainable spirit of zero," offering a subversive and rebellious commentary.

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