Pranay Dutta
Pranay Dutta has a B.V.A (2016) and a M.V.A (2019) in Painting from M.S.U, Baroda. He has been a part of various group shows some of which are Turn of the tide, Khoj International Artists Association, Delhi (2018); Art Asia, Goyang, South Korea (2018); Within|without, Asia House, Indigo+Madder, London, UK (2018); India Art Fair, Delhi (2019); Geometries of Desire and Decay , Authority of Small Objects, Delhi (2019); Delhi Contemporary Art week, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi (2019); Look Stranger, Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa (2019); Thinking Matter, Space Studio, Vadodara, Gujarat (2020), Haze, Fondazione Elpis, Milan, Italy (2022); Kochi Biennale, Curated by Shubigi Rao, Kochi (2022). He has received the INLAKS Fine Art Award in 2019, FICA x MMF Emerging Artist award, extended support platform as well as a grant from Five Million Incidents, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan in 2020. He has been a resident artist at KHOJ International Workshop, Corjuem, Goa in 2017, KHOJ Peers Share in 2019 and HH Art Spaces, Goa in 2021.
Dutta’s practice examines the complex relationship between terrestrial species and landscapes; drawing from the tension between our exploitative, extractive processes, and the imaginations/fictions of care, mutation, survival, regeneration and ‘hope’. It departs from the spilling demands of our technological era that depend on further depleting the Earth’s natural resources and studies its vast implications on the future of our ecological systems. Through painting, video, computer-generated imagery and video sculptures, he strives to evoke a sense of crumbling. Dutta invites viewers to become explorers or witnesses of unpredictable and isolating future microcosms. These are presented as immersive simulations where a collision between our collective futures, the past, and alternate versions of our own present occur. There is an attempt to reveal or accentuate the invisible and visible forces that mould landscapes – these range from geological to climatic events, colonization and extraction of resources.
