Ganesh Gohain

Ganesh Gohain is a Baroda based senior Indian artist of international repute and practising for the past 25 years. 

Born on 26th July 1966 in Khonsa, Arunachal Pradesh. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Government College of Art & Crafts, Guwahati (Assam ) and a Post Diploma in Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Vadodara (Gujarat). He was invited as a visiting faculty (2003-2005) and as an external jury member (2003 to present) at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Vadodara (Gujarat). He was also awarded the Harmony Excellence Award for Emerging Artist for the Year (2001) and received the All India Fine Art and Crafts Society Award, New Delhi in 1998.

Ganesh Gohain is one the rare Indian artists to be invited as an Artist in Residence at Glasgow School of Art, United Kingdom in 2003. He also received the Charles Wallace Fellowship Award at Berllanderi Sculpture Workshop (Wales, United Kingdom, 2002-03) and the French Government Scholarship invitation from Ecole Superieure Des Beaux Arts, Le Mans, France in the year 1998. For none of these he applied, in fact his work was noticed and thus he was invited and given international recognition at these esteemed platforms. 

He has regularly exhibited with international artists like Corinne Geffray and Jean-Louis Raymond, showcasing his work at Galerie La Veluz in Honfleur, France in the year 2017. His most recent show was curated by the artist Jean-Louis Raymond in 2018 at the Art Centre in Deauville, France then taken to the gallery Rukshaan Art Mumbai in the show title ‘An Open Roof’ and later Gallery ARK, Vadodara. He met Professor artists Raymond in Baroda many years ago from where they became friends and have continued to work professionally together since.

He expanded his sphere of influence and absorbed international tendencies in art at the two and a half months residency at Charlotte Balss’ Residence in Russelsheim, Germany 2018. He was the artist in residence at the Glasgow School of Art, U.K. in 2003, then again at the Berllanderi Sculpture Workshop in Wales, U.K. in 2002-03 and prior to that at the Ecole Superieure Des Beaux Arts in Le Mans, France in1998-99. In 1999 he also worked with Susan Leopold, the well known installation artist from New York, at the Ecole Superieure. In 1997. He exhibited with Kenji Harai, Christopher Robin, Blaise Raymond and Santana Gohain at Sarjan Art Gallery, Vadodara in 2004 at the show Cross Worlds and at the exhibition, ‘Silence’ with Kenji Harai from Japan at Art Core, The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vadodara in 2001.

He has had 12 solo exhibitions through his long career from where his works has been constantly appreciated and collected both nationally and internationally.

‘The Round’ at Galley Art Motif, Delhi (2013); ‘Reality becomes Abstract’, at The Fine Art Company at Museum Art Gallery, Mumbai (2010) ; ‘Temple Of The Future’, presented by the Fine Art Company at Galerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Francaise, Delhi (2008); ’Temple Of The Future’, at the Fine Art Company Art Gallery, Kitab Mahal, Mumbai (2007); ’Jugalbandi’ a collaborative Exhibition with Peter Bevan at Sarjan Art  Gallery, Vadodara (2005); ’Foot from Vadodara’ Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, and a collaborative  work with Sculptor Peter Bevan, Glasgow (2003); ’Foot from Vadodara’  The Nehru Centre, London (2003); “It was not Blue” Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, Sponsored by RPG Enterprises (2000);“Open Spaces to the Sky” at Lakeeren, the Contemporary Art Gallery, Mumbai (1999);“I say it is Blue” Exhibition Hall, Faculty of Fine Arts, Vadodara(1999); State Art Gallery, Assam(1994).

His work was recognised at the International Art Summit in New Delhi (2016), at "Altars and Icons" a group show at Gallery Beyond, Mumbai in 2012, ’Black & White in the Horizon’, a curatorial show, at the Faculty of Fine Arts,Vadodara and Gallery Beyond, Mumbai in 2010. 

He has regularly exhibited in Mumbai, Baroda and New Delhi where there are dedicated collectors of his works. He has shown at the exhibition ’Abstraction’ at Gallery Beyond, with Fine Art Company, in Mumbai in 2009 ; Whispering Palette, Curated by Himanshu Verma at Red Earth Galleries Pvt  Ltd, in Vadodara in 2007; ‘Understanding Oneness in Diversity’, Curated by Durva Gandhi at Kitab Mahal ,Mumbai in 2007, ‘Harmony’ with Santana Gohain at The Fine Art Company in Mumbai in 2000, at ‘Class of Baroda 97’ at Lakeeren, The Contemporary Art Gallery in Mumbai in 1997 and from 1990 to 1997 Several group shows in Assam.

Exploring a sense of ephemerality, Ganesh Gohain treads across multiple realities through his works. By juxtaposing glimpses of memories and interactions with the discursive and the abstract, the artist’s work reflects his views on a societal utopia. Within the realm of his creative expressions, he can fragment, understand and recreate realities. While his paintings address the abstract, his sculptural endeavours are directed towards a poetic visual which sings of what could be.

He is an artist who has adapted traditional modes of art practice, to create works which engage with the world dominated by western notions of art, but without a loss of authenticity, ie: “Indianness". The vital and living traditions of India are inspirational to his work but are incorporated with elements of contemporary International art, such as, minimalism, installation and performance art. In this way Ganesh fuses past and present not only within his own iconography but through an internationally resonant language of forms.

Ganesh Gohain’s conception of art is metaphysical. He has a desire to fuse all aspects of his life, including art, into a meaningful whole. And although he manipulates cultural and in some instances, universal symbolism, his metaphysics are also a network of personal reflections. They revel in historical and philosophical sources incorporated with autobiographical references too subtle to be anything other than enigmatic. But this is their strength. These works truly emerge from a fertile imagination, replete with metaphor, connecting the spiritual, the cultural and the material, bound up with the logic and the humour of personal history.