Nothing Twice | 20 March - 9 May 2026

Name of the Exhibition: Nothing Twice

Curated by Ushmita Sahu

Exhibition Date: 20 March - 9 May 2026

Preview: 5 PM Onwards, 20 March, 2026

Venue: Galleries 2, 3, Ground Floor, Emami Art

Exhibition Overview

"Nothing Twice": Group Exhibition Explores the Profound Poetry of Everyday Life Through Works by Young Women Artists

Emami Art, Kolkata presents an intimate meditation on impermanence, memory, and the unrepeatable nature of human experience.

Emami Art announces "Nothing Twice," a group exhibition featuring nine young women artists whose works transform the ordinary moments of daily life into profound artistic statements. Running from 20th March to 9th May, the exhibition draws its title and conceptual framework from Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska's meditation on life's unrepeatable nature: "Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to rehearse."

Curated by Ushmita Sahu, "Nothing Twice" brings together artists working across painting, textiles, drawing, video, photography and ceramics to explore the intimate rhythms and overlooked gestures that define human experience. The exhibition examines how materials historically associated with domestic and craft practices—cloth, clay, and pigment—can be reimagined as contemporary artistic languages that speak to both the poetics and labour of everyday existence.

Exhibition Highlights:

Works spanning painting, photography, textiles, drawing, and ceramics

Focus on the intersection of memory, materiality, and everyday experience

Meditation on impermanence and the significance of fleeting moments

The exhibition invites viewers to reconsider the everyday as a space of significance and reflection, suggesting that art can mediate what cannot be rehearsed, giving form to the fleeting and dignity to the ephemeral moments that define our shared humanity.

Participating Artists

Arieno Kera

Krisha Bhuva

Manmita Ray

Mitali Das

Moumita Basak

Priti Roy

Riti Sengupta

Ritwika Ganguly

Shilpi Sharma

Quote by Richa Agarwal

There is something exciting about watching a new generation of young women artists turn their attention to the present, pulling it apart to see how it works. The Noting Twice exhibition brings these strong voices together in one place. The show features artists working in painting, textiles, drawing, video, photography, and ceramics. Their work looks at the small, personal moments and everyday actions that make up human life. The exhibition not only reflects the present but also raises profound questions about memory, perception, and our emotional connection to time.

As a gallery that supports young and emerging artists, we are very happy to present this exhibition to the public. It is an invitation to pause and consider where new energies are gathering, and what they might be saying about now.

(Says, Richa Agarwal, CEO of Emami Art and Chairperson, KCC)

Quote by Ushmita Sahu

These artists understand that the most profound truths live in the spaces we barely notice—in the tension of thread, the weight of clay, the accumulation of brushstrokes. They refuse the hierarchy that diminishes domestic materials and intimate gestures. Instead, they reveal how survival itself is an art form, how care becomes revolutionary when given the dignity of serious attention. In a world obsessed with permanence and monumentality, they insist that what matters most is always disappearing—and that this disappearance is precisely what makes it sacred.

The exhibition positions fragility not as weakness but as a condition imbued with profound meaning. In an age where the pace of life often obscures the significance of quiet moments, Nothing Twice offers a counter-narrative that finds depth in the ephemeral, the intimate, and the unrepeatable aspects of human experience.

(Says, Ushmita Sahu, Director and Head Curator, Emami Art)

About the Artists

ARIENO KERA

Arieno Kera belongs to the Naga indigenous community and is currently based in Nagaland. She is interested in process-based art practice and engage with painting, drawing, installation and video, as an archive of local tradition and cultural memory. Exploring a material-based practice she engages critically with tools of representation derived from various traditional elements from her own indigenous background from Nagaland and interprets them into contemporary idioms of image-making while conversing with practice of drawing as an interface of representation, process and mark-making. She translates personal experience into a performative signifier of memory and transformation.

She completed her Master's degree in Fine Arts from Kala Bhavan, Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan.

KRISHA BHUVA

Krisha Bhuva (b. 2002) is currently in the final year of the Master of Visual Arts in Painting at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, where she also completed her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts.

She has been a part of several group exhibitions including, Her Story, kynykyny Gallery, Bangalore, 2026; Legacy of Kala Sakshi, Sameksha Gallery, New Delhi, 2025; Aagam, Faculty Of Fine Arts, MSU Of Baroda, 2025; Nasreen Mohammadi Scholarship Display, Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Vadodara, 2023, 2024, 2025; Statue of Unity: Reminisce Through Art, Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Vadodara, 2024; Annual Degree Show, Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Vadodara, 2024; The Poetic of the Everyday, APRE Art House, Mumbai, 2024; TACAE, Sarjan Art Gallery, Vadodara, 2024; Blue Horizon, Arushi Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2024; Etaoni Season 5, Splatter Studio, Baroda, 2024.

Bhuva has received many awards, including the Nasreen Mohammadi Scholarship 2025, ⁠the Kala Sakshi Art Scholarship 2024 and the Mehta Kaka Scholarship 2023.

She is currently based in Vadodara, Gujarat.

MANMITA RAY

Manmita Ray (b. 1996), a visual artist from Guwahati, Assam, completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Department of Painting at Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan between 2017 and 2023. 

Her works have been part of several group exhibitions and presentations, including India Art Fair 2026; 100 Years of Kala Bhavana, Lalit Kala Akademi, Kolkata (2023); the Kala Bhavana BFA Final Display, Santiniketan (2023); and the Kala Bhavana BFA Final Display, online (2021). 

She has participated in multiple artist residency programmes, including Monsoon Residency and Open Studio, Space Studio, Vadodara (2025) and IMAGINARIUM 3.0 - Residency and Open Studio, Emami Art, Kolkata (2024) under EA Locus in Focus – a long-term project conceptualised to support artists specifically from the Eastern and Northeastern regions of India. 

She lives and works in Vadodara, India. 

MITALI DAS

Mitali Das is a visual artist born in 1995 in Nadia, West Bengal. She graduated with a BFA and an MFA in Painting from the Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship, Kolkata (2017) and Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata (2019) respectively.

Her debut solo, Goosebumps, was held at the Nippon Art Gallery, Mumbai in 2020. Das’s works have been shown in many group exhibitions including The Search for Histories: A Collective Group Exhibition presented by Nippon Gallery at Gallery Charubasona, Kolkata (2025); IMAGINARIUM 5.0, Emami Art, Kolkata (2025); Fresh Produce 2.0 curated by Anica Mann, Method Delhi, New Delhi (2025); The Music Makers, APRE Art House, Mumbai (2025); Abir First Take 2024, Abir India, Hutheesing Visual Art Centre, Ahmedabad; Miniature Postage Stamp Masterpieces, Nippon Gallery, Mumbai (2023-24); Annual Exhibition, Rajya Charukala Parshad, Kolkata (2023, 2022); 2nd All India Online Art Exhibition, Art Family, Kolkata (2022); Annual Exhibition, Academy of State Fine Arts, Kolkata (2019, 2017); and Annual Exhibition, Birla Art & Culture, Kolkata (2017).

Das has participated in multiple residencies including Bachhawat Foundation Artist Residency, Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkata (2025); Dotwalk Ajitara Art Residency, Gallery Dotwalk, New Delhi (2024); and Mumbai Artists in Residence (MAIR); APRE Art House, Mumbai (2024).

She received an Award of Merit at the Rajya Charukala Parshad Annual Exhibition in 2023 and is currently based in Kolkata.

MOUMITA BASAK

Moumita Basak (b. 1996) is a community oriented, textile based artist whose practice explores the everyday lives, memories, and experiences of women, examining how markers of masculinity and femininity intersect with overlapping discourses on ecology and sustainability, particularly in her native Bengal. As an eco-feminist artist, her artistic themes, rooted in the socio-cultural fabric of Bengal, also address issues of civil rights and experiences from marginalized gender, caste, and working-class communities. Exploring questions of identity, belonging, and cultural heritage, her practice seeks to locate sustainable materials as a site of contemporary experimentation and revitalization.

PRITI ROY

Born in 1993, Priti Roy completed her MFA in painting from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata and BFA from the College of Visual Art, Garia.

She was a part of several group exhibitions including, Re-figuring, Emami Art, 2025; KCC Art Fair 2025 and 2019; Krittika Art Space online exhibition, Santiniketan, West Bengal; Taj Bengal Kolkata 2024; Rajya Charukala Show, 2023; National Art Exhibition, Lalit Kala Academi Annual Show 2022; Abir 1st Take Annual Show 2022; 54th Annual Exhibition, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, 2021; Aakriti Art Foundation, 2020; 92nd Annual Exhibition, All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, 2029; Annual Exhibition, Academy of Fine Arts, 2018; Gaganendra Shilpa Pradarshashala, West Bengal, 2027.

She has received many awards and scholarships, including the Rajya Charukala Scholarship in 2023 and the Certificate of Merit in Painting from the West Bengal Ministry of Culture in 2019.

She is currently based in Kolkata.

RITI SENGUPTA

Riti Sengupta (b.1993) is a visual artist based out of Kolkata, India. Along with photography, Riti works with text, found information, collages and illustration.

Her practice is an inquiry into the ideas of identity, memory and the politics of gender. She wishes to deconstruct the ways in which women have been traditionally represented in Indian photography.

Sengupta is a recipient of the Magnum Foundation Mobility Grant (2023), the Experimenter Generator Cooperative Art Production Grant (2023) and was a finalist for the Louis Roederer Discovery Award (2023). Her works have been exhibited at Les Rencontres d’Arles, KG+ Select, Kyotographie, Singapore International Photo Festival, MUDEC Museum of Culture, Milan and Jakarta International Photo Festival.

RITWIKA GANGULY

Ritwika Ganguly is a visual artist from Kolkata who is currently based in Baroda. Her BFA from Kala Bhavana, VBU, Santiniketan (2018-22) and MVA from Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU Baroda (2022-24) are both in painting, and she is keenly interested in video and animation as well. Her practice involves sketching, audio-visual documenting and taking notes of her observations, which she later refers to while working. Her choice of medium depends on the idea she works on, and it mostly includes drawings, watercolour wash, frame by frame animation, stop-motion, video and more recently, projection mapping.

Ritwika’s works reflect her experiences of people, places and the time she dwells in. She is curiously drawn toward the human subconscious gestures that fall on the borderline between the duality of judgments. Through her works, she aims to bring these gestures and images out of their quotidian context and allow their simplest, most negligible existence to approach people subjectively.

Ritwika has been participating in exhibitions in India and abroad, including the Kochi-Muziris Students’ Biennale (2022), Anant Art, Delhi, Apre Art House, Mumbai and Imaginarium 4.0 with Emami Art Kolkata (2024), as well as the Hong Kong Baptist University and the Lasalle College of Arts, Singapore (2024-25). Her animation shorts had been screened in the Emami Art Experimental Film Festival in 2024, ‘Lines Fiction’ hand-drawn animation filmrolle exhibition in Berlin and Erfurt, Germany (2024-25) and experimental film festival in NGMA Kolkata as a part of the exhibition ‘Material as Metaphors’ in 2025. She also participated in short residency programmes with Kala Sakshi, Delhi (2023) and Tropical Lab 18, Singapore (2024), a month-long residency in Flame University, Pune (2025) and the Peers Residency with Khoj Studios, New Delhi (2025). Ritwika’s interest in animation has also earned her an opportunity to work in collaboration with the eminent animation filmmaker Prakash Moorthy and has also brought her closer to the emerging animators and filmmakers in India.

SHILPI SHARMA

Born in 1997 in Murarai, a village in West Bengal, Shilpi Sharma has recently completed her master’s in fine arts from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University. She has her bachelor’s in design, specialising in ceramics and glass, from Visva Bharati University. Shilpi’s ceramic works are inspired by various patterns and designs found in nature, like floral patterns, works of water on stone, weathering, lichens, and the structure of honeycombs.

Shilpi is currently pursuing her PhD in glazes, different types of clay, and natural materials available in and around Santiniketan. Her interesting use of natural fibres in her works lends them a unique quality.

She was part of All That is Hidden: Mapping Departures in Landscape, Terrains and Geographies, Emami Art, Kolkata, 2024; Bhū - Tatva; Elements of Earth, Emami Art, Kolkata, 2023; India Art Fair, 2023, Exhibition at the Italian Consulate for the 700th Death anniversary of Dante Alighieri (2022); 1st international ceramics exhibition of Silpakorn students and International University Students (Thailand, 2021); “Bhū” – Emami Art, Ceramics Exhibition (2021). Shilpi has participated in various workshops across the country. She is a recipient of the Merit scholarship from Shilpa Sadna, Visva Bharati University (2018-2019).