Rajesh P Kargutkar, Colour Day, 2024, Oil on canvas, 60 x 90 cm, Copyright Artist, Credits Artist & The Culture Story
Cramped Space: A solo exhibition by Rajesh P Kargutkar
Presented by The Culture Story
27 July—4 October 2024
The Culture Story presented Rajesh P Kargutkar’s solo exhibition “Cramped Space”, a new series of paintings that captured the dynamic daily life and rich stories within Mumbai’s historic chawls, which act as a stage for everyday life where individuals traversed, connected, and shaped their own narratives. Rooted in personal biography, the artist’s visual storytelling intertwines memories and photographs, blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination. His artworks depicted a diverse cast of characters inhabiting these tight quarters, ushering viewers into these intimate yet constricted interiors, from the elderly man engrossed in a newspaper beside a tray of dried mangos and a clothesline laden with various brightly coloured undergarments in Sour Lover (2024), to the topless man symbolically caught between his wife and mother-in-law in MID Day (2024).
Kargutkar’s paintings affirmed the inherent right to everyday existence, revealing boundless possibilities within the chawls that defied the constraints of time, space, and resources. By highlighting the lived experiences, memories, and routines of chawl inhabitants, Kargutkar underscored the agency, creativity, and resilience of both individuals and communities, recognising their ability to flourish in the face of adversity. For the artist, every moment, no matter how ordinary, teemed with unexplored potential, waiting to be discovered.
Read the conversation between Rajesh and Yvonne Wang here.