Prajakta Potnis

(b. 1980, Thane, India)

Prajakta Potnis’s work digs deeper into the nexus between the frailty of a human body and the greed of a capitalist state. Through the process of multi-medias, she draws a portrait of the present moment of anxiousness and uncertainty, carved in the backdrop of a humanitarian and climate crisis here are moments of pause and restlessness, of despair and dissent. Her works draw upon the chasm witnessed within the everyday domestic in context of gender and social divide. The artist lives and works in Mumbai, India. She has extensively shown her works since 2001 nationally and internationally.  Born in 1980, Prajakta lives and works in Mumbai. 

Prajakta is the recipient of the Loewe Foundation / Studio Voltaire Award, International Artist Residency 2024-2025. She was part of the 15th Sharjah Biennale, “Thinking Historically in the Present” Conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi in early 2023. Her photographic works were part of “Imagined Documents”, curated by Ravi Agarwal at the 2022 Rencontres d’Arles, Arles. In 2021 she was invited to open a virtual solo exhibition titled “the slow burn” at The New Media Art Space at Baruch College, CUNY, New York. She was also part of “Art Histories of a Forever War: Modernism between Space and Home” an extensive show curated by Kathleen Elizabeth Li-Ying Ditzig, Fang-Tze Hsu at the Taipei Fine Art Museum in 2021. Her solo projects include – “when the wind blows”, Project 88, Mumbai (2016), “Kitchen Debate” at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2014), “Time Lapse” at The Guild art gallery Mumbai and “Local Time” at Experimenter, Kolkata (2012), “Porous walls” The Guild art gallery, Mumbai (2008), “Membranes and Margins”, at Em gallery, South Korea (2008), “Walls in between” (2006) at The Guild art gallery.

Selected biographies include : “Facing India”, Ed. Ralf Beil, Uta Ruhkamp, text(s) by Ralf Beil, Urvashi Butalia, Roobina Karode, Uta Ruhkamp, published by Hatje Cantz (2018), “store in a cool and dry place”, with essays by Zasha Colah, Atreyee Gupta and Merel Van Tilburg, published by Verlag Kettler supported by KFW Stiftung and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien (2014), “I’m Not There: New Art from Asia”, Edited by Cecilia Alemani published by The Gwangju biennale (2010), “Younger than Jesus: Artist directory” co-published by Phaidon Press Limited, London, England and New museum, New York (2009).