Tanya Goel New Delhi, India, b.1985
Tanya Goel’s works are notable for their exploration of a rigorous abstraction that is deeply invested in the process of their creation. The artist makes her own pigments from a diverse array of materials including charcoal, aluminum, concrete, glass, soil, mica, graphite, and foils, many sourced from sites of architectural demolitions in and around New Delhi. She is interested in the textures of her pigments as well as their colors, which is a direct result of how they reflect light. Her compositions, noted for their density and complexity, are mathematical formulas which are established and then violated, resulting in a balance between structure and chaos. Goel’s paintings can also be read as linguistic systems, as meaning is constructed only through laborious repetition.
The artist is interested in the idea of the Screen, which painting has always been analogous with. We can trace the Screen through the trajectory of Art History from the flatness of Egyptian art to the simulated three-dimensional space of the Renaissance, back to the flatness of Modernist Abstraction. Goel’s works elaborate a dialogue for painting acknowledging the digital screens in which most of our information and images now reside, exploring both the limitations and the freedoms to be found within this flux.
Tanya Goel was born in New Delhi in 1985 and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University, Baroda and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, before completing her Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Yale University in 2010. She has had two solo shows with Nature Morte (New Delhi in 2018 and New York in 2019), two with Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke in Mumbai (2011 and 2015), recently with the Jessica Silverman Gallery in San Francisco (2023). In 2022, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels mounted a survey of her works from the past 15 years. Her works are in the collections of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; The Art Gallery of Alberta, Canada; the UBS Bank, Zurich; Istanbul Museum of Modern Art ; Louis Vuitton Collection, Paris; and The Lalbhai Museum in Ahmedabad. She was a participating artist in both the Sydney and Gwangju Biennales in 2018. A site-specific work entitled ‘index V’ was on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2020, as a part of the exhibition ‘fault lines,’ curated by Amanda Sroka.
Selected Artworks
Solo Exhibitions
2023
Octaves, Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, USA
2022
Optics and Duration, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium
2020
Pause in a Flicker, Nature Morte, Viewing Room
Equations in a Variable, Galerie Urs Meile Lucerne, Switzerland
2019
This, the Sublime, and its Double, Highline Nine Galleries, New York
2017-2018
This, the Sublime, and its Double, Nature Morte, New Delhi
2015
LEVEL, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai
2011
2" Left from Here, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai
Group Exhibitions
2024
Mechanisms 8, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art Collection
2023
Design for a Garden, Von Bartha, Basel, Switzerland
Analysis, Disruption, System, Raum Schroth at Museum Wilhelm Morgner, Soest Germany
Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka, Bangladesh
India Art Fair, New Delhi, India
2021
On Site, Bikaner House, New Delhi
Frieze Art Fair, London, UK, Presented by Nature Morte
Hub India: Classical Radical, Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino, Torino, Italy
2020
Fault Lines: Contemporary Abstraction by Artists from South Asia , Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA
Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka, Bangladesh
India Art Fair, New Delhi, India
2019
Visions Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada , Winnipeg Art Gallery , Canada
Shadow lines, Experiments with Light, Line and Liminality , Shrine Empire, New Delhi
2018
Imagined Borders, The 12th Gwangju Biennale, Curated by Clara Kim, Gwangju, South Korea
Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada, Curated by Catherine Crowston and Jonathan Shaughnessy, Art Gallery of Alberta and the National Gallery of Canada, Canada
Wasteland, Curated by Birgid Uccia, Tarq, Mumbai, India
Aspirational Architectures, Curated by Justine Ludwig, Fridman Gallery, New York, USA
SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement, 21st Biennale of Sydney, Curated by Mami Kataoka, Sydney, Australia India Art Fair, presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, New Delhi, India
2016
DWELLING, 10th Anniversary Show, Curated by Ranjit Hoskote, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
Abstract Chronicle, Curated by Girish Shanane, Gallery OED, Kochi, India
2014
Experiments with Truth and Time, Museum of Conflict, Ahmedabad, India
2013
Sarai Reader Exhibition, Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi, India
Un Popola Senza Memoria E Un Popola Senza Futuro, Curated by Sumesh Sharma and Serena Trinchero, Casa Masaccio Arte Contemporanea, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy
India Art Fair, New Delhi, India, Presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke
2012
Salaam Bombay: Beauty and Chaos within the Urban Environment, Curated by Jasmine Wahi, Art Asia Miami, and Twelve Gates Arts, Philadelphia, USA
ART HK12, Hong Kong International Art Fair, Hong Kong, Presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke
City as Studio 2, SARAI, New Delhi, India
2011
Cabernet Initiatives, Northside Open Studios, Brooklyn, New York, USA
OPT (Working Title), Curated by Arthur Brum, Gallery White Flag, New York, USA
2010
City as Studio, SARAI, New Delhi, India
2009
Ten Ton Lid, Greene Gallery, New Haven, USA
Sam's Space, Yale School of Art, New Haven, USA
Awards
2012
City as Studio Fellowship, SARAI, New Delhi, India
2010
Elizabeth Canfield Hicks award for Painting and Drawing, Yale School of Art, New Haven, USA