'Between Myth & Matter' Traces The Relationship Between Myth, Material, & Memory

In Kolkata, Durga Puja puts the work of artists and artisans on public view at a city-wide scale. As the festival approaches each autumn, pandals take shape across neighbourhoods, with artisans transforming the city through architecture, art and storytelling. The festival's cultural life has long been tied to the people who make it, from the construction of its elaborate temporary structures to the artistic traditions that inform their design. For Anissa Sonthalia, who grew up in Kolkata, this relationship between art, the city and its cultural calendar forms an important part of the thinking behind Trace Gallery, a new space for visual art, design and music in Southern Avenue. The gallery opens with Between Myth & Matter, a group exhibition that considers how mythology, devotion and inherited artistic practices find expression through contemporary art.

Featuring Seema Kohli, Kanika Gupta, She Kantha, Anirban Das, Samik De and Manmita Ray, the exhibition examines the relationship between the sacred and the material through sculpture, painting, embroidery and contemporary image-making. Its six participating artists work with different subjects and mediums, drawing on religious imagery, epic narratives, textile practices and organic forms. The exhibition's timing, during Kolkata's Durga Puja season, places these works in conversation with a city-wide tradition of public art and the artisans whose work contributes to it.

Sonthalia's intention for Trace is tied to the relationship she sees between the festival and the city's wider creative community. In her statement about the exhibition, she describes Durga Puja as one of the world's great public art festivals, recognising the artisans who transform Kolkata through art, architecture and storytelling each year. She hopes to bring this ecosystem into closer dialogue with contemporary artists and institutions. One of her central ideas for Between Myth & Matter is to connect three spaces usually considered separately: the museum, the pandal and the commercial gallery. The exhibition gives that proposition a starting point, placing artistic practices associated with ritual and devotion within a gallery programme.

The artists approach the exhibition's themes through a range of materials and processes. Seema Kohli's sculptural painting of Durga, alongside her evocation of Kamdhenu, draws on figures from Indian mythology. Her works combine painting and sculpture, incorporating plywood, fibreglass and 24-karat gold and silver leaf. Anirban Das also works with religious iconography, using cutwork on iron sheets for his depictions of Durga and scenes from the Ramayana. His use of iron places the figures and narratives within a practice shaped by the cutting and working of metal, with the medium forming an integral part of the work.

Kanika Gupta's hydrochrome-plated Vaanar Sena introduces another material process to the exhibition's engagement with epic narratives. The figures draw from the Ramayana, while their plated treatment places this mythological reference within a contemporary sculptural context. Samik De, whose practice is inspired by Indian mythology, works with ink and acrylic. His compositions are described through meticulous detailing and bold expression, adding an illustrative approach to the exhibition's range of interpretations.

She Kantha's hand embroidery on batik textile directs attention towards the labour and process involved in textile-making. The work places embroidery and its material construction at the centre of its visual language. Manmita Ray's practice draws on organic forms, using trees, plants and animals as symbolic references through which emotional states are translated into visual metaphors. Her contribution extends the exhibition's exploration of symbolism through references to the natural world, with an approach that draws on a different set of associations from the mythological subjects elsewhere in the show.

Across these practices, Between Myth & Matter considers how inherited imagery and traditions can be carried through different materials, techniques and forms of artistic expression. Each artist brings a separate vocabulary to questions of representation, craft and the material life of cultural traditions. The exhibition's focus on myth and ritual also places the work of contemporary artists in relation to the artisans whose labour gives Kolkata's festival culture its form. This connection is central to Sonthalia's ambition to bring the pandal into conversation with the museum and the gallery, allowing the exhibition to consider the place of craft and devotion within contemporary artistic practice.

Trace Gallery occupies a 1,500-square-foot space on the ground floor of Somnath Hall, an 80-year-old building in Southern Avenue. Its entrance is through a creeper-lined verandah, and the neighbourhood is home to heritage brands, cafes and galleries. The gallery's name draws from the idea of leaving one's mark behind, reflecting Sonthalia's intention to contribute to the city's creative community. Before establishing the physical space, she launched AS Galleries in 2020 as a digital platform for art accessibility. An alumna of New York University and Sotheby's Institute of Art, Sonthalia has also worked in finance in the United States and India.

The gallery's ambitions extend beyond its exhibition programme. Trace intends to support Bengal-based artists through residencies, grants, workshops and public art projects, while creating opportunities for practitioners working across visual art, design and music. Its programme is intended to champion artists experimenting with different mediums, reimagining local craft and engaging with questions of learning.

With Between Myth & Matter, Trace begins its programme by placing a conversation about mythology and material culture within the city that has helped shape its founder's understanding of art. Kolkata's pandals already give artisans a public platform for sculpture, architecture and storytelling; Sonthalia's proposition is to carry that exchange into the gallery and its wider cultural programme. The exhibition is on view until 28 November 2026.

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