ARJUN DAS
CV
Born in Giridih, Jharkhand
Lives and works in Kolkata
M: +91-9748848857/ 7980394252
Postal address; 138, Mata Manmohini Nagar, Kolkata 700108, West Bengal, India.
Academic Qualifications:
M. F. A Sculpture in 2017 from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
B. F. A Sculpture in 2015 from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
Professional activities and Exhibitions:
Solo;
2025 SOME RUINS ARE EXTANT, India art fair, New Delhi, India
2025 SOME RUINS ARE EXTANT……Transient city and rooted one, Gallery Fons Welters, Netherlands.
2023 Land of the Leal, solo exhibition at Dhi Artspace Hyderabad, India
2019 Traces, solo exhibition at museum Forum Schloss Platz, Switzerland
Group
2026 How Matter Comes To Matter, at Onomatopee, Eindhoven, Netherlands
2026 VIVARTAN, presented by National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Kolkata.
2026 Landbound: Love and Labour, India Art Fair, presented by Dhi Artspace.
2025 Art Rotterdam, Rotterdam, presented by The Balcony, The Hague, Netherlands.
2024 In the vacuum we felt air, at Kunstfort Vijfuizen, Netherlands.
2024 India Art Fair, presented by Dhi Artspace
2023 Keep it Real, Gallery, Dhi Artspace, Hyderabad
2023 India Art Fair, presented by Dhi Artspace
2023 Drawn to Detail, Gallery Art Positive, New Delhi
2022 An Unlocated Window of Myself, curated by Premjis Achary at Gallery Dotwalk, Delhi.
2021 Traces of transference; An exhibition of unseen bearings, Emami at Kolkata
2020 Mojarto art fare online exhibition
2020 Metaphor: The Magic It Holds” 3 sculptors show at Dhi Artspace, Hyderabad.
2019 Persistence of Memory, a group show, at Art Positive gallery, New Delhi, India.
2019 And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie, in New Delhi
2018 “SVIKRITI” An exhibition of the awardees at Birla academy of art and culture.
2018 Birla Academy Annual Exhibition.
2017 Charukala Annual Exhibition
2017 State Academy Annual Exhibition
2017 4thEmami Annual Exhibition
2017 Birla Academy Annual Exhibition
Achievements:
2024 The Elizabeth Greenshields (Canada) Art Grant holder for 2024
2023 Art residency for 2023-2024, Jan Van Eyck, Netherlands
2022 Jester Art Residency Genk, Belgium for 3 months.
2022 ART FOR HOPE GRANT, Hyundai India Motor Foundation, New Delhi.
2021 Emami Art Residency Program, Kolkata
2019 CIMA merit award
2019 Piramal art residency “shifting borders “cycle – 23, Mumbai, India.
2019 Khoj Kolkata, Artist in resident at “ARBEITSGRUPPE GASTEATELIER KRONE” for six months
in Aarau, Switzerland.
2018 Rabindra Bharati University gold medalist in sculpture MFA
2018 Participated YS South Asia Young Subcontinent, Serendipity in Goa.
2018 Awarded in Abir India annual exhibition “first take 2018” Ahmadabad, India.
2018 Holds National Scholarship [Ministry of culture, India] for the year 2018-2019
2018 Awarded for Sculpture in Birla Academy Annual Exhibition, Kolkata, India.
2017 National, Regional art camp, “Traditional/Tribal and Contemporary artist”, Kolkata, India.
2017 Awarded for Sculpture in Charukala Annual Exhibition, Kolkata, India.
Artist biography
Arjun Das Born 1994 in Giridih, Jharkhand, India (Village; Brayn) Lives and works in Kolkata, India Arjun Das, like many others from his village moved to Kolkata with his brothers to work in a restaurant at the age of 10. However, his attraction toward drawing never lost. Das has enrolled to Rabindra Bharati University where he did his BFA and MFA Sculpture in 2015 and 2017. Arjun has long working experience as a migrated worker and He tries to reflect reality of working-class people through his artworks. Arjun doing his practice with found and recycling materials and enjoying his curving skill with re-used wood and other materials relief works and try to make an artistic archive about the labor class workers. Arjun’s solo presentations include Some Ruins are Extant, India Art Fair, New Delhi (2025), SOME RUINS ARE EXTANT…..Transient city and rooted one, Fons Welters Gallery, Amsterdam (2025), Land of the Leal at Dhi Artspace, Hyderabad (2023), and Traces at Museum Forum SchlossPlatz, Switzerland (2019). He has also presented his work in many group exhibitions.
Statement
The stories of daily wage labourers who are going from the villages into the city at a young age, to fulfil their needs and dreams, has formed the base of my art practice. I present stories of unrealized dreams, responding to the life I once lived and continue to reflect on.
I was also one of them when I moved to Kolkata from a village in Giridih, Jharkhand, at the age of eleven, to join the vast pool of migrant labourer that keeps Kolkata running. I left my village in 2004 so that I could fulfil my dream of living a good life. I joined a road side eatery and after 2 years I re-started my school study in Kolkata. I went to work in restaurant while the hot, cramped kitchens are not pleasant places to work (or sleep) in, and it was also very difficult to stay inside the restaurant all the time because at that time there was more awareness for child labourer’s act movement in India.
The spaces the migrants inhabit bear no clear demarcations of a kitchen, washroom, private room, and market. Further, they are like disparate elements, assembled to create a makeshift shelter far removed from the comfort of their hometown. In my work, I attempt to make these conditions, and connected stories, visible by bringing them into the space of art. I also try to capture their urban dreams, who drastically transform into a site of uncertainty.
To do this, I meet communities of labourers and get to know more about the genealogy of the migrant labourer by interacting with them, and visiting their villages to get an overall notion of the profession. I try to create awareness with their children, who often don’t believe in education. By collecting documents and materials from their work places, I try to narrate their stories and activities in my artworks. Most of my artworks is in relief form, which is inspired by Indian temple and cave architecture’s story telling visuals. For this, I use re-used wood, stone, bricks, concrete blocks, Asphalt etc. which I collect from different construction working site and create different dimensions and volumes. The stories I tell, carved out in those found materials, come from reality. Within them, there is dignity to the labour class and also a layer of mocking the upper class and power.
I use objects in my artworks that can be seen as symbolic for how objects become part of an identity. I follow the status of objects within the lives, and view, of working-class people. Objects are reflecting the status of economical, ecological, political, psychological and other layers in society. So, here, with my background and further research, my position is both as an insider and outsider.