Charm, creativity, community: Art and Charlie gallery carves out a unique cultural space
Tucked away in a picturesque bylane in Bandra’s Pali Village is a popular cultural hub, Art and Charlie. In addition to art exhibitions, the contemporary art gallery hosts sessions on music, comedy, theatre, and film.
The Mumbai gallery was founded by Ayesha Parikh, a former management consultant and chartered accountant. She also explored the world of art at museums and fairs around the world, and learnt more about art from courses at Sotheby’s and Node Centre for Curation Studies.
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She spent five years with McKinsey in London, in the space of performance management, recruitment processes, culture transformation, learning, and development. She was earlier the director at Animate Projects and corporate strategy manager at Nilgai Foods in Mumbai.
Parikh also worked on mergers and acquisitions for KPMG. She graduated from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the University of Warwick.
She strongly believes in the ability of art to transform society for the better. Her gallery team regularly experiments with innovative ways to increase people’s engagement with visual art.
Earlier exhibitions this year were titled To Make a Home with You, I am Not Your Dalit, and Land That Lives Through Us. Showcases in earlier years were titled The Rational and the Emotional, Will Still Remain, Abundance in the Void, Three Questions at Once, Off Margins, The Illusion of Home, and Dear Tereza.
The current exhibition, titled Rooted and Rising, features the diverse works of 10 artists. The lineup includes Aksh Diwan Garg, Deepak Dhiman, Kumar Misal, Nachiket Prakash, Riya Chandiramani, Saviya Lopes, Sukanya Ayde, Vyom Mehta, and Yogesh Barve.
Nachiket Prakash is an artist, educator and curator from Pune. He was a coordinator for the Pune Biennale Foundation in 2017 and serves as visiting faculty at Flame University and MIT School of Fine Arts, Pune.
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Riya Chandiramani graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Communications and a focus on gender, fine art, and Chinese culture. Her work has been featured in various group shows in Europe and Hong Kong
Saviya Lopes is a visual artist based in Vasai and was on the curatorial team for the Kochi Students Biennale 2022. Her works address feminism and the role of women in the textile sector, and she views the human body as an active agent of societal protest.
Sukanya Ayde is a Delhi-born artist with a keen interest in traditional Indian arts. She graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and has exhibited at venues such as High Line Nine Gallery, The Upside Space, and Visual Arts Gallery in New Delhi.
Yogesh Barve was part of the second Transnational Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. In 2015, he was invited for a residency at Google Cultural Institute, Paris. Since 2017, Barve has also run a YouTube channel called Dalit Poetry and Literature.
Vyom Mehta is a sculptor who works with materials like metal, terracotta, cement, and paper mâché. His more recent work has been with the potters of Mandla, Madhya Pradesh and Molela, Rajasthan, as part of a livelihoods programme.
The Art and Charlie gallery team offers curation services for artist communities and channels their energy through exhibitions. It supports artists who show a commitment to expanding their art practice, and provides art research and acquisition services for collectors.
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Clients include those who want to procure art for their homes, offices, restaurants, and real estate developments. Other services include commissioning art installations for corporate and event companies.
“My practice and journey are like an autobiography, and I find myself responsible to react through my art,” Kumar Misal explains. He comes from a farming community, and his works address the struggles farmers face, ranging from social discrimination to economic hardships.
“I was born and brought up in the Kumbhoj region of Kolhapur, where sugarcane, corn and bananas are widely grown,” he adds. For his paintings, he makes paper from banana, corn and sugar extract.
Misal’s artworks depict the political, social and environmental challenges faced by farmer families. “Due to pressures of survival, they are forced to migrate to urban areas, which leads to displacement of the community and loss of local culture,” he observes.
He works with his community for themes and materials. “Many a time, this collaboration keeps me connected to my roots and also helps me get my story across like a sutradhar,” Misal describes.
Now, what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and harness your creative side for a better world?
(All photographs taken by Madanmohan Rao on location at Art and Charlie.)
Edited by Suman Singh
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