Santanu Debnath, born in 1995 in Betpukur, a village in West Bengal, completed his BFA and MFA from The Indian College of Arts & Draftsmanship and Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata, respectively.
His solo exhibitions include Morphology of Water: A Project by Santanu Debnath, Emami Art, Kolkata (2025); an online solo show The Simple Life by Emami Art, Kolkata (2020); and After Cities Fall, Nippon Gallery, Mumbai (2020). He has participated in several group shows including The India We Imagine: Echoes of the Forgotten at The India Conference, Harvard University, USA (2026); Re: Figuring, Emami Art, Kolkata (2025); Views from Within, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi (2025); There Are Tides in the Body: Indo-Swiss Group Exhibition curated by Damian Christinger, Emami Art, Kolkata (2024); All That is Hidden: Mapping Departures in Landscape, Terrains and Geographies, Emami Art, Kolkata (2024); 100 Yuva Sumbhava, Raza Foundation, Delhi, 2022; IMAGINARIUM, Emami Art, Kolkata (2021); GCAC Annual Exhibition (2019-21); KCC Art Fair 2019; West Bengal State Academy, Kolkata (2018-19); ICAD Annual Exhibition, Kolkata, (2015-18); Institute de Chandannagar, Hooghly (2017); among others. His works were presented by Emami Art, Kolkata at India Art Fair (2026 and 2025); and IAF EDI+IONS, Hyderabad (2025).
Debnath participated at a residency at Sunderbans Winter Field School organised by IIT Kharagpur, University of Waterloo, and University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh (2026); and was an artist-in-residence at the three-month Open Studio Monsoon Residency 2024 at Space Studio, Vadodara. His work An Elegy (2021) was published in Longform 2025: An Anthology of Graphic Narratives published by Penguin Random House India.
He won the Gita Das Award at the GCAC Annual Exhibition in 2019 and a Certificate of Merit at the West Bengal State Academy Annual Exhibition 2018-19. He received the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant 2024 and the prestigious Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin Scholarship 2020-21.
Santanu Debnath lives and works in Betpukur, West Bengal.
