Sheila Makhijani
Talwar, New York is delighted to present with 115 works over four decades, it is what it is, an insight into the drawing practice of Delhi based Sheila Makhijani. Since the early 1980s with gouache, graphite, pastel, ink, oil, collage on paper to stitched, folded, compressed and three-dimensional drawings, Makhijani has continued to explore and push the possibilities of line and color.
Can be the other way as well? | 2006 | Dry pastel on paper
Makhijani’s works on paper are a dynamic extension of a deep engagement with her ideas. Known for her intricate and energetic lines, Makhijani approaches drawing not just as a preparatory medium but as a primary form of expression. Her works on paper reflect a sensibility that is at once playful and precise, intuitive yet rigorously composed. These drawings do not merely rest on the surface; they move, twist, and often seem to be pulsating with life.
Using a fine brush Makhijani transforms line into a living force. Rather than serving as a contour or outline, the line becomes the central subject—fluid, dynamic, and often erratic. Her use of gouache on paper enhances this vitality, allowing her to modulate opacity, create textural variation, and establish striking contrasts between dense pigment and negative space. The resulting works oscillate between chaos and control, delicacy and intensity. These lines are not confined by borders and while each stroke carries a sense of immediacy, the overall composition reveals a deep sense of control.
Start Getting Used to it! | 2009 | Gouache, cotton thread on paper, plastic sheets (Detail)
As Catherine de Zegher, art historian and former Director of The Drawing Center expresses, “Although beautiful and skilled Makhijani’s painted lines are not mere decorative elements but are integral to the overall narrative of her pieces that profess open-mindedness, balance and harmony. They guide our eyes across the paper, initiating a visual journey that unfolds with each line or stroke or thread. As the sinuous lines vary in thickness, color, and intensity, they seem to pulse and breathe, giving her drawings a sense of life, joy, and movement. Fluid, dynamic and organic, they meander and intertwine, creating intricate patterns that evoke a pulsing of energy, of urgency and of vitality. In this it is evident that a layered deconstruction of linear modernist structures is crucial to Makhijani’s collages with gouache and thread on paper and plastic sheets, like it is to the filmy surfaces of Julie Mehretu’s psychogeographies, to Susan Hefuna’s translucent gridlike cityscape and building drawings, and to Monika Grzymala’s temporary three-dimensional drawings.”
Now you just stay there | 2005 | Gouache on paper
In Makhijani’s compositions on paper, the organic lines exist in harmony with the more structured and geometric elements, creating a dynamic interplay between order and chaos…
Catherine de Zegher
Everyone is thinking of that | 2022 | Dry pastel on paper (Detail)
For Sheila, the euphoria of creation continues to precede every other consideration in the practice of her art
Roobina Karode
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA)
Void 1 | 1988 | Acrylic, jute and paper on paper
Over the last four decades Sheila Makhijani with her quotidian practice stands distinctly apart in the art landscape in India for her commitment to a non-representational language. Makhijani’s ongoing dialogue with the possibilities of drawing and her persistent effort to explore what a line can do when liberated from the task of representation, allows her oeuvre to exist independently with its own internal logic.
Makhijani’s works have been exhibited worldwide, including at the The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) at the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia; Museum Arnhem, Netherlands; Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Australia; Kunsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands; Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, Netherlands; San Jose Museum of Art, CA; National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), India and The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, India.
Makhijani was born in 1962 in New Delhi. She was awarded her Bachelor and Master of Fine Art degrees from College of Art, New Delhi and later in 1992-93 she studied at Kanazawa Bijutsu Kogei Daigaku in Kanazawa, Japan.
Sheila Makhijani lives and works in New Delhi, India.