Rahul Jain - Gunjan Arora

Rahul Jain & Gunjan Arora, working together as Threadarte for over two decades, have developed a meticulous, material-led practice rooted in sustainability, ecological sensitivity, and collective engagement. Their art reflects a belief that materials carry memory, and that transformation—of matter, thought, and process—is at the core of creative and ethical making. Every element they use is carefully sourced; not a single thread is purchased. Waste yarns, discarded textiles, factory surplus, and metal remnants are methodically collected, sorted, and repurposed into immersive installations. These overlooked materials are brought back to life through careful construction, becoming powerful metaphors for renewal, resilience, and continuity.

Their current series draws from the movements of rivers—fluid, adaptive, ever-shifting. Like rivers that cut through land, leaving behind traces of transformation, their materials reflect histories of erosion, accumulation, and change. Thread, in its fragility and responsiveness, becomes a metaphor for the river’s journey. Even when rendered in steel or other industrial metals, the forms retain an essence of flexibility and motion, challenging conventional ideas of structure and permanence. Their practice moves fluidly between the painterly and the sculptural, blending abstraction and figuration. Each work is layered and composed with acute sensitivity to texture, colour, and form. Steel filaments run through the compositions like currents, anchoring fragile elements while preserving their visual lightness. The result is a body of work that is both meditative and materially complex, shaped by a process that is slow, deliberate, and deeply responsive.

Community and collaboration are central to their philosophy. Beyond their own partnership, they have built an extended network of waste contributors, artisans, yarn manufacturers, and research collaborators. Their work emerges through these informal, care-based systems of exchange and dialogue. It is through this ethic of shared responsibility and mutual respect that their sustainable practice is sustained—not only materially but ideologically. Threadarte invites viewers to engage with a shifting world, to notice the quiet transformations that occur in nature, in memory, and in material. In an age defined by excess and disconnection, their work insists on attention, patience, and care. It reminds us that every discarded thread can carry meaning, and that beauty, like a river, is found in movement, not stasis.

Rahul & Gunjan’s works have been part of various exhibitions including nine solo exhibitions and numerous group shows, both nationally and internationally. Their recent exhibitions include, India Art Fair with Art Centrix Space, New Delhi (2025); India Design’, New Delhi (2025), Art Mumbai with Art Centrix Space, Mumbai (2024); ‘ITERUM’, solo exhibition at Art Centrix Space, New Delhi (2024); ‘India Design’, Mumbai (2024); ‘Design Democracy’, Hyderabad, (2024); ‘Transience’, Architecture and Design, Mumbai (2022); India Design, New Delhi (2024, 2023, 2022, 2020, 2019, 2017 and 2016); ‘Fibre of Our Lives’, curated by Pranamita Borgohain, Gallery Art Positive, New Delhi (2021); among others. They have also been awarded the ‘Award of Excellence in the Field of Art’ under the ‘Make in India’ campaign in 2017.
Their works are part of significant collections worldwide, including Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Savitri Jinadal collection, Forest Essentials, Estee Lauder, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd., Jinadal Power Ltd, Sir Thomas Sean Connery, Eric Roberts, and others, with continued interest from collectors aligned with sustainability and socially engaged practices.

The artists’ lives and works in Delhi.