Artists in Residence
At 105 Arts, we have always believed that art is not merely displayed — it is experienced.
The gallery is not a stage; it is a sanctuary of becoming. It is in this spirit that we continue our Artist in Residence programme, a space we hold sacred for the kind of making that demands time, presence, and the friction of genuine encounter. This first ever edition of the residency brings together four voices — each distinct in sensibility, medium, and geography — yet united by a singular commitment to the rigour and poetry of their craft. What draws them here, to this space in Chandigarh, is the same thing that draws us to present them: the belief that when artists of depth share a common ground, something shifts. In the air, in the work, in the viewer. We chose this particular constellation of artists because together they form a rare dialogue — between the meditative and the visceral, the ancient and the contemporary, the whispered and the bold. Each brings a world. Together, they bring a conversation that we hope will linger long after the walls are bare.
The Artists
Rafiuddin
Rafiuddin is a keeper of a world that insists on enduring. A miniature artist of exceptional refinement, his practice is deeply rooted in the Mughal school — its intricate geometries, its jewelled palettes, its narration of courts and cosmos. Yet his work is never merely archival. Each painting is an argument for beauty as an act of resistance, a reminder that precision can be transcendence. In an age of speed, Rafiuddin’s art asks us to lean in, look closer, and surrender to the detail.
Hemant Dhane
From Maharashtra comes Hemant Dhane, an abstractionist whose work does something rare — it stops you. Not gently, not politely, but with an insistence that demands your full attention. There is a raw intelligence to his canvases, an emotional architecture that resists easy reading while rewarding patient looking. His forms feel simultaneously like memory and premonition, pulled from some interior landscape that is unmistakably his own. Hemant’s presence in this residency brings with it an energy that we expect will charge the studio air.
Susmita Debnath
We welcome Susmita Debnath to her maiden show at 105 Arts with a particular warmth — for there is something precious about a first, something irreplaceable in the threshold
moment of an artist stepping forward. Susmita works in the wash technique, and her
paintings are precisely what that word suggests: a washing over of the senses. Her works both in the spice series and the nature series are delicate without being fragile, elegant without straining for effect. They leave you, as the best art does, strangely moved without being able to say exactly why. We are happy to be the space where her story begins to be told publicly.
Amol Pawar
Amol Pawar inhabits a territory where myth meets matter. Working in charcoal and acrylic on canvas, his semi-figurative works draw from the deep well of mythological imagination — yet the figures that emerge are never static icons. They pulse. They are in the midst of something. His process is itself a form of performance, and this residency will offer visitors the rare opportunity to watch Amol demonstrate and create his signature work live — to see the mythological world take shape stroke by stroke, and understand that for him, the making is inseparable from the meaning. Beyond presenting new works, this initiative reflects 105arts’ continued commitment to engaging with students and emerging artists — creating opportunities for them and society to observe, interact, and learn. We invite you to come not merely to see, but to be present — to wander through the work slowly, to let the conversations between these four artists unfold before you. The residency, at its heart, is an invitation: to witness the act of art-making as it happens, and to be changed, even a little, by what you find here.
