The Homegrown Festival 2025 Will Showcase Never-Seen-Before Work By Santanu Hazarika

Homegrown contemporary artist Santanu Hazarika’s multidisciplinary practice examines the “shadowy recesses of the mind,” unearthing stories often hidden underneath polished façades. Hazarika's use of contrast — through bold black lines made in charcoal against stark white paper — invites viewers to question the boundaries between beauty and disarray, art and accident, creation and destruction. The recurring themes of distortion and surrealism hint at the imperfections beneath the surface, daring the audience to find beauty in the grotesque and the unresolved.

'In the Shadow of Unresolved Truths', a never-seen-before body of work by the artist, will be part of a first-of-its-kind solo exhibition at The Homegrown Festival 2025, taking place at the Richardson & Cruddas (1972) Ltd. in Byculla, Mumbai, on February 22 and 23, 2025.

This never-seen-before body of work is a visceral exploration of the imperfection, fragility, and the haunting beauty of the human condition. Harnessing the raw, tactile essence of charcoal on paper, these images oscillate between precision and chaos — mirroring the tension between control and surrender.

"When I'm composing, when I'm actually framing or creating the imagery, that's where the chaos bit weighs in the most. When it comes to the point where I have to execute it because the whole process of me executing it requires a very high amount of focus which only can be achieved in the state of flow," Hazarika explains. "That flow only comes through involuntary way of executing as if it is breathing or as if it is how muscles contract and relax to produce an output. It's the same scenario here where both chaos and precision have to go hand in hand to create or sort of translate the emotion or the idea that I have."

"It encompasses both improvisation at certain stages and also a certain amount of precision that is very intentional towards a larger picture or larger design," Hazarika says.

Hazarika's choice of charcoal — a medium as transient as it is bold — anchors the exhibition's philosophical thesis. Deliberate strokes collide with unintentional smudges and imperfections, creating psychedelic compositions where faces dissolve into patterns and bodies morph into surreal abstractions. These surreal forms, often left tantalisingly unfinished, evoke a sense of fleeting moments frozen in time — challenging conventional notions of artistic perfection and finality.

"I've always been drawn towards imperfections and deformations and things which are a little bit on the grotesque side since I started painting and drawing," Hazarika says. "I think it has to do a lot with how I grew up and has to do a lot with body image and being exposed to a lot of things at a very young age, which are considered quite graphic. It's an intermix of both."

"As a kid, I was kind of overweight. And there was always a lot of things happening around that, being bullied, being called names. Naturally you have some sort of body dysmorphia, an idea that builds up and carries on even if things have changed physically around you or you have changed. Sometimes I tap into that zone and I have to change the idea of conventional beauty in order for me to cope with certain things."

This subversion of societal expectations of perfection is central to Hazarika's practice. His figures — distorted, fragmented, or eerily abstract — are often vessels for unresolved emotions and identities. These distortions, both grotesque and mesmerizing, compel viewers to find grace and beauty in the imperfect, the unresolved, the unfinished. Hazarika's works act as mirrors, reflecting the viewers' own inherent vulnerabilities and unanswered questions, urging instead a celebration of life’s lack of closure and sense of finality.

These gaps invite interpretation from viewers, transforming passive observation into an act of co-creation. The viewers become accomplices, projecting their own narratives onto the voids. Hazarika’s surrealist leanings further destabilize their sense of reality, as hybrid creatures and spectral figures hint at subconscious realms. The effect is immersive, pulling viewers into a liminal space where boundaries dissolve, and beauty exists in flux.

The Homegrown Festival, known for spotlighting innovative voices from across India, provides the ideal platform for Hazarika’s vision. In an era obsessed with curated perfection — flawless Instagram filters, relentless productivity, and hyper-polished personalities — Hazarika’s celebration of the raw and the unresolved feels radical, and underscores a growing cultural shift toward embracing authenticity.

'In the Shadow of Unresolved Truths', a never-seen-before body of work by Santanu Hazarika, will be part of a first-of-its-kind solo exhibition at The Homegrown Festival at the Richardson & Cruddas (1972) Ltd. in Byculla, Mumbai, on February 22 and 23. Grab your passes here.

Brand Labs

Our partners and collaborators will be hosting a series of brand labs and activations over the course of the Homegrown Festival 2025. You can expect to see a whole host of exciting pop-ups from Black & White, Adidas Vibes, Tata Motors, Royal Enfield Royal Enfiled, Stone X, New Era, Fila, Heineken, and AIX.

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