ICIA Presented the First-ever Solo Exhibition in India by Celebrated Artist Tom Vattakuzhy

News Desk, News Nation 360: With the help of AstaGuru, the Institute of Contemporary Indian Art (ICIA) was pleased to present The Shadows of Absence, the renowned artist Tom Vattakuzhy's first solo exhibition in India. From July 11 to July 20, 2025, the show took place at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Kolkata. The Shadows of Absence represented a long-awaited moment of arrival for those who had followed Tom's work, whether through his stirring early illustrations for literary publications or his most recent appearances at the Kochi Biennale Pavilion and the India Art Fair. Professor R. Siva Kumar stated that in the context of India, Tom Vattakuzhy is a fascinating and rather unique painter. His straightforward and realistic approach to the everyday, experienced environment is reminiscent of Western artists before the rise of modernity. His ability to accomplish this while being fully cognisant of modernism and its repercussions was what made him unique. He lived in and had a deep understanding of the world he represented. Through his work, Tom demonstrated that pictorial realism is still a powerful and contemporary artistic language. Tom Vattakuzhy, born in Kerala, has had a career that spanned Santiniketan, Baroda, and other global contexts, his work deeply influenced by literature, humanist values, and a keen sense of social engagement, all stated in a sensitive and radiant style that blends the disciplined realism of the Renaissance, surrealist suggestion, and the serene intimacy of Kerala's domestic world, and what gave his recent show, The Shadows of Absence, its special importance was its presentation of 16 major recent works—which had never previously been exhibited in India—giving viewers a rare and compelling opportunity to absorb the emotional and visual richness of his practice as it developed a narrative of memory, history, and contemporary Kerala's shifting social fabric, and at a moment when painting as a medium is commonly eclipsed by conceptual and digital art, this show reaffirmed its quiet but powerful capacity to reflect and evoke, constituting an important moment in Vattakuzhy's career while also illuminating a body of work which has developed steadily and consciously, largely outside the mainstream, but always in sincerity, contemplation, and artistic clarity.

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