Jitish Kallat

Jitish Kallat (B.1974, India) received his BFA in painting from the Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai in 1996. Kallat's paintings are often monumental, his largest painting being 8 x 20 feet (2.5 x 7 meters) in size. His subject matters are often self-referential, depicting himself, his wife, & other members of his family. Kallat's methodology involves a heavy reliance on photography, giving his paintings an appearance that resembles a popular advertisement.

The face that Jitish Kallat’s paintings present to the viewer is a deliberately uninviting one. Kallat’s works record a continuing process of decay & growth. They simulate - through the piquant ambiguities of density & shadow - the effects of peeling & chipping, scratching & smudging, the spread of damp and moss. Kallat turns his picture surface into a wall: a public document on which private emotion finds purchase in teasing graffiti  & impulsive doodles,  memoranda jotted among patches of mouldy plaster.

Jitish Kallat still works & lives in Mumbai & has exhibited internationally including Britain, Germany & the United States.