Shivangi Kalra Tells the Story of a Bygone Delhi

Shivangi Kalra Tells the Story of a Bygone Delhi

Method Kala Ghoda presents You're Growing On Me, a deeply personal yet universally resonant exhibition by Shivangi Kalra. Running from March 1 to March 30, 2025, the show explores memory, architecture, and social dynamics through a series of intricate oil paintings.

In You're Growing On Me, Shivangi reconstructs the interiors of a bygone Delhi—one where grand homes and lavish gatherings masked the silent struggles of those within. Her works unravel the nostalgia of an opulent past while questioning the hierarchies and unspoken tensions embedded in these domestic spaces. Voices emerge through texture, color, and detail—some hushed, some demanding to be heard. As the city grows and transforms, so do its stories. What lingers? What fades? And what, despite it all, refuses to let go?

 

Shivangi Kalra Tells the Story of a Bygone Delhi Let's Take This Party Outside

Let's Take This Party Outside

Artist Statement  
Growing up in a fast-pacing ever-growing city of people quarrelling, celebrating, condescending, and picking at each other, I absorbed micro stories from nameless parties hosted much too often, which stayed with me for a long time.

While things seemed happy and okay from the outside in these parties of wealth and privilege; the longer I observed, the more I found, feelings, people, women, unheard, even when they screamed in silence. I ponder over the overwhelm, extravagance and vanity of such events in my super-real memoirs.

Shivangi Kalra Tells the Story of a Bygone Delhi You're growing on me (left) | Like A Bride (right)

You're growing on me (left) | Like A Bride (right)

My work often depicts interiors and architectural qualities of houses/domestic spaces from my childhood, with a hint of nostalgia, as it decayed when the city started growing vertically in the past two decades. I must acknowledge that such archives become witness of a certain class. The beautiful bungalow built in the centre of lush gardens is a great set up fora beautiful painting, but how can I paint it so it also talks about everything that it is not? How can it be, what else?

While I continue to lament on the demise of such architecturally rich landscape, mourning the up-and-coming disposable and fast lifestyle of Delhiites; I think about the celebrations that take place inside the bubbles of these luxurious houses.

 

Shivangi Kalra Tells the Story of a Bygone Delhi

In the meantime, faint conversations and sounds seep into the paintings, alongside vivid memories. The dialogue between first zooming into excruciating detail and then snapping too far out of the mess in this world that I create; makes me empty and then full again, ready to burst. In this process, my fears come alive, my frustrations speak up, painting becomes sonic and my voice grows louder than the gossip and chitter-chatter of whose outfit is the worst tonight and whose wife is too much to handle.

Shivangi Kalra Tells the Story of a Bygone Delhi

“I walk in.

I say hello, 14 and a half times

Is he eyeing my skirt?

I am overthinking

This is a safe space.

I should have gone with jeans.

The garden looked so nice

With the roses, though feisty thorns

I must say

Their money plant is growing fast eh,

I mean makes sense!

Oh, hello nice doggie, you're also bored, aren't you?

I love your company too!

I was scored first, but I have to say,

You're growing on me."


(Poem, 2024, written parallel to the painting You’re growing on me)

 

Shivangi Kalra Tells the Story of a Bygone Delhi Drowning Bishop (left) | Countdown 2 (right)

Drowning Bishop (left) | Countdown 2 (right)

Words Platform Desk
Date 13.03.2025