About The Gallery
Founded in 2001, Art Alive is a contemporary art gallery based in New Delhi. The gallery has been committed to creating a culture of engagement between art connoisseurs, art enthusiasts and artists. It represents well known contemporary artists from all over India and has organized shows of Indian art in London, Chicago, Palo Alto, Seoul, Dubai, Sydney, Singapore and Abu Dhabi. The gallery presents a holistic showcase of contemporary, modern and emerging art from the country through its curated exhibitions and retrospectives, artist talks and extensively researched books and catalogues promoting a multi-faceted approach to art.
Art Alive Gallery has in its repertoire some of the finest names in Indian contemporary art. Having nurtured a lifelong relationship with the artists, the gallery has witnessed their creativity mature through their art life journeys. The gallery has exhibited artworks by several renowned masters in the past including the legendary artists, S.H. Raza, Krishen Khanna, Jogen Chowdhury, Anjolie Ela Menon, Manu Parekh, and Laxma Goud, among others. Currently, the gallery works with masters and midcareer-contemporaries such as Sakti Burman, Thota Vaikuntam, Shibu Natesan, Paresh Maity, Jayasri Burman, Arpana Caur, Maité Delteil, S Harsha Vardhana, Tara Sabarwal, Chandra Bhattacharjee, Yashwant Deshmukh, Maya Burman, Anjaneyulu G, among several others. With a vision to stimulate art practices in the contemporary sphere, the gallery also works steadily in promoting young talent from the country and offers its space for incubation of new narratives and fresh creative vision. Meera George and Vipul Rathod are emerging contemporaries who have recently become a part of Art Alive Gallery’s extensive program. Further exploring the different possibilities in contemporary art, the gallery also works with and represents ceramic artists, Partha Dasgupta and Vinod Daroz .
A distinct position has been carved by Art Alive in creating an effective visual and interactive dialogue through several curated shows. In 2005, the gallery was given ‘the best show award’ by the India Habitat Centre for organizing a show titled Ways of Seeing. Some of its other memorable shows include: Fair & Furious (2004), Bridges (2005), Tatva (2006), An Indian Summer (2007), Urgent Conversations (2008), Retrieval Systems (2009), Fragility (2011), Shesh Lekha – The Last Poems of Rabindra Nath Tagore (2011), Living Walls (2013), Art Now series (2016 to 2019), YOU WILL KNOW ME: Migration Stories (2020), Life. Soul. Games. (2022) and Infinite Light: Paresh Maity (2022) to name a few.
The Gallery celebrated the 85th birthday of S.H. Raza in a multi-arts event named, Swasti in 2007. The event comprised a solo show of the artist at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, a group exhibition of Raza Foundation awardees, a poetry & performance arts festival and a panel discussion on Raza, titled Shoonya aur Aakar (Form and Nothingness) with distinguished art critics and writers that the gallery has been associated with over time. Art Alive Gallery has also been organizing retrospectives and solo shows of distinguished artists, namely, Sakti Burman, Manu Parekh, Thota Vaikuntam, K.S. Radhakrishnan, Yusuf Arakkal, Paresh Maity, Shuvaprasanna, Maite Delteil, Raghu Rai, Singh Twins, Tara Sabharwal, Veer Munshi and Jayasri Burman to showcase trends in modern and contemporary artistic spheres. Furthermore, the gallery has also showcased numerous group shows featuring younger contemporaries such as Emerging India (2007), Generation Next (2008), What is Contemporary (2019), Moments and Transformation: Finding Life in Materiality (2019), Cabinet of Curiosities (2024) and Past Forward (2024). Art Alive was the first gallery to bring tribal artists to contemporary Indian platform through the show Jangarh Kalam (2010).
A prominent voice and committed to promoting Indian contemporary art on the world platform, the gallery has consistently collaborated and held shows at the Royal College of Arts, London, Victoria & Albert Museum, London and Jebiwool Art Museum, Seoul among others. The gallery has also collaborated with International Festivals like the 7th edition of St. Moritz Art Masters 2014, Switzerland for exhibition of works of contemporary Indian artists. It presented an exclusive collection of Paresh Maity’s watercolours, titled, ‘A Mystic Journey’ as part of the ‘India Calling! 2010’ event in Chicago. Most recently, Art Alive Gallery supported artist Chandra Bhattacharjee for a residency at University of Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo and was also a programming partner at KALA, 2025, a platform for celebrating art and cross-cultural exchange in the South Asian region.
Art Alive Gallery has also ventured into publications to contribute in documenting and archiving contemporary Indian art, publishing a range of books and catalogues. Some of the notable publications are Faces of Indian Art (2007), A Life in Art: S.H. Raza (2007), The World on a Canvas: Paresh Maity (2010), Sakti Burman: A Private Universe (2015) and 20th Century Indian Art (2022) a landmark publication showcasing the history of Indian art across the subcontinent and South Asia from the late-nineteenth century to the present day published in association with Thames and Hudson. The most recent publications are Thota Vaikuntam: Redefining the Cultural Gaze (2024) and Jayasri Burman: The Whisper of Water, The Song of Stars (2024), which offers valuable insight into the artists’ evolution and development of their signature style through critical text and rich visuals.
A regular participant in International art fairs and events, Art Alive Gallery aspires to build aesthetically active visual experiences, promote emerging perspectives and assist the growth of Indian art on the global platform.
SUNAINA ANAND
Sunaina Anand is the founder and director of Art Alive Gallery. Over the last two decades, she has contributed to the development of the art sector promoting visual arts. Art Alive Gallery represents some of the well-known Indian artists such as S.H. Raza, Sakti Burman, Paresh Maity, Thota Vaikuntam among many others. To promote Indian art, the gallery under her leadership, has organized shows of Indian art and participated in international art fairs in London, USA, Sydney, South Korea, Singapore, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. In order to increase knowledge and document contemporary Indian Art History, she launched an independent publishing wing in 2004. One of the most recent publications, being one of its kind is 20th Century Indian Art, a landmark publication tracing the history of Indian art across the subcontinent and South Asia from the late-nineteenth century to the present day. She is the founding Trustee of The Partition Museum and has helped in setting up both the museums, first one in Amritsar and more recently in Delhi at Dara Shikoh Library. She is of the founding members of Delhi Art Week (DAW), an initiative aimed at strengthening ties between art organizations and art lovers, including both public and private establishments and encourage patronage to foster the art ecosystem in the national capital; she also writes the monthly column on emerging perspectives on art called ART NOW in The New Indian Express and is an art consultant to several corporate houses and prominent hospitality chains in India.
