Shedding light on the unseen, the artists navigate heritage, consciousness and personal revelation, says Sakshi Priya
In a cultural moment saturated with spectacle and overstimulated aesthetics, Awakening the Inner Light, curated by Ranbir Rathi and presented by Nero Art Hub, offers a rare and vital stillness. This group exhibition, featuring the works of fifteen contemporary artists including Akansha Chaturvedi, Anupama Singh, Jattinn Kochhar, Dharmendra Rathore, and Sophie Muret, among others, steps away from the performative glow of externality and urges viewers to turn their gaze inward.
Across paintings and photographs that straddle the figurative and the abstract, the show becomes a cartography of spiritual, emotional, and cultural consciousness. In this context, “light” becomes not a spiritual cliché but an evolving register of psychological clarity and transformation. From the outset, one is struck by the tonal complexity of the show. There is an ambient restraint in the curation. Rather than dazzling visual explosions, we are met with deliberate gestures, layers scraped and rebuilt, surfaces weathered like memory. The paintings resist immediate interpretation. Their abstraction feels earned, rooted in lived experiences rather than decorative impulse. Many explore liminality, moments between waking and sleeping, presence and absence, noise and silence. What distinguishes Awakening the Inner Light is the distinct yet interconnected vocabulary of its participating artists, each one contributing a deeply personal visual meditation. Akansha Chaturvedi and Anupama Singh explore layered femininity and spiritual presence, while Bandeep Singh’s photographs become metaphysical reflections. Jattinn Kochhar’s distressed canvas speaks of introspection; Lorraine Thiria’s misty figuration evokes memory in flux. Moonmoon Bhagchandika and Renuka Anand contemplate recovery and resilience. Neeraj Sharma blurs body and terrain through tactile abstraction. The diversity of backgrounds and sensibilities among the fifteen artists becomes a strength, not a distraction. Whether French, Indian or from elsewhere, the voices represented in this exhibition converse across visual vocabularies without hierarchy. The exhibition offers space where silence and memory converge, inviting viewers to feel and reflect deeply.