A Reading Path Down a Rabbit Hole: Ajay Dhapa

There is very little written about Ajay Dhapa’s work so far, let alone full interviews and profiles. Kuch Hai will continue to monitor and publish in-depth profiles about Dhapa as they are conducted.

Platform Magazine

Navivasi is the locality where he grew up amidst trust and shared lives. Using floral carpet motifs as metaphors for land and relationships, he paints layered narratives filled with humour and sensitivity.

He sees and paints the invisible thread that sustains life: trust given, and trust received.

This work articulates the architecture of care: the invisible systems of protection and perseverance that shape one’s becoming. The work becomes a study in duality: protection and perseverance, stillness and propulsion, tenderness and toil.

In Ajay Dhapa’s visual language, the horse becomes a symbol of endurance and routine, echoing the cycles of domestic life. It is the tireless presence within their stories—the provider, the partner, the weight and rhythm of the everyday.

Navivasi (New Fragrance), Mixed media on canvas, 72 × 48 inches (183 × 123 cms), Ajay Dhapa

Rukshaan Art

Drawing from personal experience, Ajay Dhapa’s works engage elegantly and lightly with expressing the socio-political milieu of his hometown. Brought up in a multi-religious locality where different communities live in perfect harmony and interdependence…

With the help of miniaturist imagery, he enhances various childhood memories to create an involvement of events, space and time in his works.

Treating the floral carpet design as a metaphor for our land and symbol of beautiful relationships, he superimposes various stills of situations which he recalls and recreates.

His canvases are populated with characters referenced from Mughal and Pahadi miniatures to create interesting stories or situations on a large surface.

Navivasi (New Fragrance), Mixed media on canvas, 72 × 48 inches (183 × 123 cms), Ajay Dhapa