Roshan Chhabra

Roshan Chhabra

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Roshan Chhabria (b.1983, Vadodara, Gujarat, India) holds a B.V.A. degree in Painting with Gold medal (2011) and M.V.A. in Painting with Gold medal in 2013 from Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda.

He received the Gujarat Lalit Kala Award (2008) and the Nasreen Mohamedi Scholarship (2009-2010). He has had a solo show at Gallery Maskara, Mumbai in 2013 and has been part of many group shows such as DIVER-CITIES II at Latitude 28, New Delhi (2013), Traditions\ Transformation at Geukens & De Vil, Antwerp, Belgium, Ho~Art curated by Premjish Achari in Hyderabad, Heart by mistake, Hungary, 1×1 Art gallery, Dubai,2018, Guild Art gallery, Mumbai 2018, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi 2019. He was at KHOJ Residency, Delhi, 2013, URU Art Harbour residency in 2018 curated by Riyas Komu and at Priyasris studios- AQ in Baroda from 2013-19.

Roshan’s practice has its root directly or indirectly in his life and his experiences of being born and brought up in a middle-class Sindhi family. Confronted with constant expectations, personal and familiar aspirations, sensibilities and concerns that are inbuilt in his ways of thinking. Stemming from this, over the past few years, ‘middle-class’ has become an adjective for Roshan’s process, and his choice of mediums and forms; observed through ‘middle-class eyes’ and working around a kitschy and borderline garish sensibility to portray the subject. Humour and double meanings are inherent, but most often the light-hearted portrayal is laced with the constant reservation and doubt Roshan has about his own life decisions. The use of text both found and written by him, as well as the utilization of a ‘peculiar’ and questionable aesthetic also becomes a route to question the notion of the ‘good’; ‘misspellings and inconsistent conjugation’ positioning Roshan right at the knife’s edge between two worlds.

Roshan lives and works in Vadodara, Gujarat, India