Press Release
Name of the Exhibition: Alchemy of Absolute Intimacy
Solo exhibition by Sayanee Sarkar
Exhibition Date: 22 May - 10 July 2026
Preview: 4 PM Onwards, 22 May 2026
Venue: Galleries 2 & 3, Ground Floor, Emami Art
Overview Text
In her debut solo exhibition, Alchemy of Absolute Intimacy, artist Sayanee Sarkar presents a poetic and perceptual reimagining of body, gesture, and intimacy, moving far beyond its conventional imaginations. We conceive the bodies in acts or closeness through the lens of assumptions and the familiar meaning of movement and gestures. But, Sarkar, in her work, questions these very fundamental assumptions. Her works engage with the spatial positioning of bodies, the subtleties of the gaze and looking.
What immediately captivates is her employment of highly translucent hues and stratified monochromes. She soaks the canvas with paint, allowing it to stain in layers. These identical colour gradients create a pictorial field in which the figures and the surface almost feel inseparable. This creates forms that are ambiguous or unrecognisable. Her figures almost seem to emerge from a dream or a fog of memory. They are neither fully abstract nor figurative. They remain in between. The unsaturated stains produce flatness, yet the layers create a depth of perspectival space. The layered gradients of the same hue create a sense of interiority, optical depth, and volume. With this osmotic blending, the figures and their environment feel inseparable, much like paint fused with canvas.
The viewer cannot determine whether the gestures or acts they witness are erotic, violent, platonic, or something else entirely. To name it is to close the attention. Once we decide that an encounter is sexual, we cease to see the gesture itself; we see only its category. Sarkar’s work operates at this critical point. The viewer is left in a state of ambiguity, a suspended curiosity that questions the very desire one projects onto the body. The spectator oscillates between what they see and what they want to see. This feeling of confusion generated from the ambiguity brings the inner sensations of the viewer, making it very sensorial and experiential. It invokes one's own desire, trauma, and the narratives on what is seen in the painting. The figures are depicted in spaces with no clear demarcation. But, often, they imply a sense of privacy. The bedroom, a private space or any speculative interior. But what acts? The ambiguity remains. And the viewer never gets access to this privacy as a voyeur.
Quote by CEO
We are excited to present ‘Alchemy of Absolute Intimacy,’ the debut solo exhibition of our represented artist, Sayanee Sarkar, at Emami Art. As one of the most promising young contemporary artists of her generation, Sayanee has consistently demonstrated a rare depth of vision, sensitivity, and creative rigour. We have featured her work in our presentations at leading art fairs and group exhibitions over the past year, where her practice has drawn meaningful attention from critics and collectors alike.
The solo exhibition brings together a cohesive body of work that is the culmination of her artistic explorations in recent years. It brings us further joy to recall that Sayanee was the third award winner of our 2024 annual open call, IMAGINARIUM, supported by the Emami Foundation and the Kolkata Centre for Creativity.
(Richa Agarwal, CEO of Emami Art and Chairperson, KCC)
Quote by the Director and Head Curator
In Sayanee Sarkar’s debut solo exhibition, ‘Alchemy of Absolute Intimacy,’ her painterly language is shaped by a quiet but persistent sensitivity to surface and touch. She often refers to the raw canvas as the ‘skin’ of the work; a ground that absorbs, holds, and at times resists the gesture. Working with delicate washes alongside sudden impasto, she allows forms to arrive gradually, almost as if they are being felt into being rather than fully rendered. Her brushwork shifts between hesitation and assertion, between transparency and density, keeping the image slightly unsettled. It is within this shifting, tactile space that intimacy begins to take form.
(Ushmita Sahu, Director and Head Curator, Emami Art)
About the Artist
Sayanee Sarkar, born in Siliguri, West Bengal in 1999, holds a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from the Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship, Kolkata, 2022; and graduated as a Master of Visual Arts in Painting from Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, 2024.
Her work has been featured in several group exhibitions across India, including Re: Figuring, Emami Art, Kolkata, 2025; The Baroda March, Rukshaan Art, Mumbai, 2025; Bodies under India Art Fair’s Young Collectors Programme, Delhi, 2025; IMAGINARIUM 4.0, Emami Art, 2024 — where she won the third Award of Excellence at the Open Call; Without Cube, MSU Fine Arts Faculty Gallery, Baroda, 2024; Pushpabaug, Anant Art Gallery, Noida, 2024; Potluck, MSU Baroda Fine Arts Faculty Gallery, Gujarat, 2023; FIRST TAKE, Abir India, Hutheesing Centre, Ahmedabad, 2023; the Nasreen Mohamedi Scholarship Exhibition, MSU Baroda, Gujarat, 2022; and the Annual Exhibitions 2020 and 2022, Indian College of Art and Craftsmanship, Kolkata.
Her works were presented by Emami Art, Kolkata at India Art Fair 2026; Art Mumbai 2025; India Art Fair EDI+IONS 2025. She was also a part of the ceramics internship at Studio Calyx in Kolkata in 2023.
Sayanee Sarkar is based in Vadodara.
Press Contact Information
Name: Sreyashi Sircar
Phone: +91 98306 85017
Email: sreyashi.pr@emamiart.com
Social Media
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Address
Emami Art, Kolkata Centre for Creativity 777, E M Bypass, Kolkata 700107
Date: 24.04.26
Place: Kolkata
