Ashvita’s will present Mimesis, a new body of work by celebrated artist duo Thukral & Tagra, opening on 5 June 2026 at its newly launched white cube gallery space in Chennai. The exhibition marks a significant moment for both the gallery and the artists, bringing together an ambitious exploration of memory, technology, and contemporary visual culture.
Emerging as a residue and extension of the artists’ ongoing series Arboretum—a contemplative investigation into communities of trees, living archives, and collective memory—Mimesis shifts the focus from organic ecosystems to digital terrains. Through hundreds of painted canvases composed of imagined bars, pixels, and fragmented visual units, the exhibition examines how lived experiences are translated, archived, and interpreted within increasingly data-driven environments.
At the heart of the exhibition lies a fascination with the tension between digital acceleration and the deliberate slowness of painting. By transforming abstract data forms into tactile, handcrafted compositions, Thukral & Tagra question how contemporary experiences are recorded and remembered.
“We wanted to imagine infinite units, each representing a lived moment. For us, time, data, context, and urgency often become ways of seeing. These unique bars read like data sets, each marking the present, while carrying traces of the practices that have shaped our journey over time,” say Thukral & Tagra.
Living across online and offline realities, individuals today increasingly experience the world through systems of data, algorithms, and mediated images. Mimesis reflects on this condition, asking whether pixels can become new vessels of memory and emotion, and whether systems of code can retain traces of intimacy, absence, care, or surveillance. The exhibition creates a space for reflection on what it means to remain human in an age where technology continually reshapes perception and experience.
Initiated in 2022, elements of Mimesis have previously been presented at Nature Morte in New Delhi, the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Jaipur Centre for Art, and Kamalnayan Bajaj Art Gallery in Mumbai. The Chennai presentation brings the project together in an expansive format and is accompanied by a studio-signature newsletter featuring a text by Chirag Thakkar.
The exhibition opens on Friday, 5 June 2026, with a press preview scheduled for 4 June 2026. Mimesis will remain on view until 17 July 2026, from 11 AM to 7 PM, Monday through Friday.
With Mimesis, Ashvita not only inaugurates a new chapter for its gallery programme but also offers audiences an opportunity to engage with one of contemporary Indian art’s most thought-provoking explorations of memory, materiality, and the digital condition.
