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The artist signature — Christo and Jeanne-Claude — is one of the most endearing stories of how two artists, perfectly in sync in every thought of their lives, created a single identity for the works they made together, their ideas and inspirations blending seamlessly into one whole. Both artists, American by nationality, were born on June 13, 1935 — he in Bulgaria, she in Morocco — and were noted for their large-scale, site-specific installations. Christo continued to create in their joint name even after Jeanne-Claude passed away in 2009; he followed in 2020.
There are numerous such stories of artist couples exhibiting incredible synergy with each other and creating immortal art, either together or individually. Some famous examples from the West include Françoise Gilot and Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, to name only a few.
India, too, has its share of such partnerships, though they are not as widely celebrated for their coupling as they could be. Notable Indian artist couples practising in contemporary times include veterans such as Gulammohammed Sheikh and Neelima Sheikh, Manu and Madhavi Parekh, as also their younger contemporaries such as Atul and Anju Dodiya, Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher, among many more.
Against this backdrop, the concurrent solo shows at Aicon Contemporary in New York by artist couple Jagannath Panda and his wife Pranati Panda invite a closer look at the dynamics of making art alongside a partner, with whom one shares not just the process of creating art but very life itself.
The pairing is especially intriguing because such simultaneous solo exhibitions by two artists with distinct practices — as with Jagannath and Pranati — are rarer still. Their shows, ‘Thresholds of the Elsewhere | Jagannath Panda’ and ‘Weaving What We Carry | Pranati Panda’ opened at New York’s Aicon Contemporary on September 3 and both run through October 4.
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Asked about his feelings on having a solo each together, for the first time in their nearly three decades of artistic practice, Jagannath says: “It is truly special to share this moment with Pranati. We both have had long, individual journeys, but our practices have always existed in dialogue with one another. To present our solos side by side in New York is not only a celebration of our individual voices but also of the companionship and support that have carried us forward as artists and as a couple.”
Echoes of the Microcosm II, 2025, a work by Jagannath Panda, acrylic, fabric, pigment, glue on canvas, wood
He adds: “This is the first time we are exhibiting together in parallel solos, and this show at Aicon is unique; it emerged organically from our long relationship with the gallery and the desire to bring together our practices in resonance, yet in distinction.”
Pranati says she feels deeply grateful. “Having our exhibitions side by side is like holding a mirror to our shared life but from two very different directions. Our art speaks differently, yet it is nourished by the same soil of lived experiences.”
Conflation of conflict and détente
Bhubaneswar-born and New Delhi-based Jagannath Panda is one of the top contemporary artists of India and is well-known for simultaneously exploring the collision and coalescence of nature and man through his intricately detailed mixed-media paintings, drawings and sculptures. In fact, he can be called one of the most successful contemporary practitioners of ‘contradiction’ in his art.
In his current exhibition, ‘Thresholds of the Elsewhere’, he digs deeper to reflect on the fractured times in what seems to be a gradual yet firm evolution of his practice. Through works that appear more layered and ambitious, he continues to explore contradiction but with a deepened sense of internal balance that acknowledges dissonance without being overwhelmed by it.
“Contradiction is where I began my journey as an artist, living between the mythic landscapes of Odisha and the fragmented realities of the urban world. That tension shaped me, and it still does. My engagement with contradiction is not about resolving it but about holding it, allowing utopia and disorder to coexist in the same frame,” says Panda.
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“The inspiration comes not only from artists but also from life itself: Indian cities, folk traditions, and even philosophy. Artists like Bhupen Khakhar and Nalini Malani have been important references, as are the oral tales and rituals of Odisha, where joy and melancholy live side by side,” adds Panda, who holds a BFA from BK College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar, an MFA in Sculpture from MS University, Baroda, and another MFA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Arts, London.
Guardians of the Invisible City, 2025, a work by Jagannath Panda, acrylic, fabric, pigment, glue on canvas
In his ongoing exhibition, he has created works that surprise with the seamless blend of symbols of man, machine and nature in the same frame, creating what one can distinctly call an aesthetic conflation. The disparate elements hold their individual identities yet the sum of the parts remains dominant and pleasant.
The kaleidoscope he creates, for instance, in the mixed media work Echoes of the Microcosm II, shows cellular entities arranged in harmony with elements of nature such as clouds, yet cut through by a thick, steely line that can be interpreted as an anthropogenic footprint. By melding industrial aesthetic with those of Mughal art and architecture, Panda creates the very epitome of conflation.
Similarly, The Unseen Rhythm, a circular mixed media work measuring 43.5 in. in height and width both, is exactly that — a visually poetic expression of the rhythm that runs this planet, adjusting its cycle regularly as per newer environmental stresses induced in the Anthropocene.
With more rhythm and less cacophony, Jagannath’s work has veritably pushed a newer level with this exhibition, where some of the most distinctive pieces are those that blend his hardcore contemporary aesthetic with recognisable elements of Mughal art, such as the uniquely stylised clouds and the eight-pointed star; that latter commonly seen in well-known Mughal monuments such as Akbar’s tomb in Sikandra, a suburb of Agra in Uttar Pradesh.
Poetics of viscerality
If Jagannath’s kaleidoscopes are entrancing, the works by Pranati, largely tactile and with their predominant yet unobtrusive use of red across materials, catch attention. It is immediately obvious that her works are more intimate, internal and personal in nature than Jagannath’s as they venture into spaces of blood, relations, and connections.
Pranati is known to work slowly, intuitively, with materials that are light and intimate: cloth, net, glue, and paint. Her works in this exhibition, as per the gallery, exist in a space between tension and tenderness, where mesh and netting provide structure while simultaneously allowing the thread to spill through in a symbolic act of resisting containment.
In Transience I, 2025, a work by Pranati Panda, in ply, fabric, synthetic thread, cotton thread, glue, ink and acrylic colour.
“For me, thread and textile are natural languages. Thread is not just a material. It is a thought, an emotion, a memory stretched into form. Again and again, my work returns to the red thread: a lifeline, a pulse, a soft tether to what lies beneath the surface. It resembles blood: not only as a symbol of life, but as an index of vulnerability, connection, and the quiet endurance of the self. In my hands, thread becomes an extension of the body, winding and unwinding like breath, like memory, like time,” says Pranati.
While on the one hand, a work like Play House of the Mind — watercolour, ink, thread and glue on handmade paper — evokes images of relationships, unions and procreation because of the fluid and aqueous red, Shades of Sunrise, made in aluminium net, PU paint, fabric and thread, is a comment on how all of it impacts the mind, thereby influencing the growth of temporal human connections.
The innovative use of fabric as small globular beads on the body of the spider in Becoming I and Becoming II, attest to Pranati’s meditative practice. In fact, the long limbs of spiders in Becoming I and Becoming II evoke the most famous artistic spider of the world, Maman by the French American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), a 30 ft-high creature in steel and bronze, stationed at multiple locations in the world such as the Tate Modern in London and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, among others.
Becoming I, 2025, a work by Pranati Panda, in ply, fabric, synthetic thread, cotton thread, glue, ink and acrylic colour.
It is not a surprise that Pranati mentions Bourgeois among artists she considers important. “Artists like Louise Bourgeois, Frida Kahlo, Eva Hesse have been important to me, but so have everyday women whose stories rarely enter history,” says Pranati, who too is a graduate from BK College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar, and holds an MFA from the College of Art, New Delhi.
The very viscerality of Pranati’s works instantly imbues them with a feminist tone, which, however, is not belligerent, but only a statement of facts. She says, “It is impossible to escape gender; it enters my work not as an agenda but as a lived truth. The dilemmas women artists face — between visibility and invisibility, between tradition and freedom — resonate with me. However, I do not see myself limited to ‘women’s issues.’ My practice moves between the deeply personal and the universal. For me, gender is not a constraint but a lens; it allows me to speak of endurance, moment, memory, and survival in ways that are both intimate and expansive.”
Multiplicity of narratives
While the two solo shows bring spotlight on two very distinctive practices of Indian art, between themselves, they also give an idea of the concerns that contemporary Indian artists are dealing with. Jagannath says: “The contemporary Indian art scene is vibrant, restless, and constantly negotiating with history. My generation has had to carry the legacies of modern masters of the 1940s–’60s, but instead of being intimidated, I think we have been energised.”
He adds: “Our concerns have shifted: we are dealing with globalisation, ecological collapse, migration, gender, identity, and the pressures of urban growth. Many artists of my generation draw from tradition but reimagine it for fractured times. The political climate inevitably enters our work, but often through layered symbols rather than direct commentary. The lasting impact, I believe, will be in the multiplicity of voices: how we have expanded the map of Indian art beyond one dominant narrative.”
It is this multiplicity of narratives in Indian art that these two solo shows underline as also the harmony that is possible despite divergent views and practices, a vital lesson in a world where all things, including personal relations, are transactional, ephemeral, and even disruptive.
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