• Five artists, two countries, and a shared history shaped by decades of practice

When art travels, it carries more than objects. It carries context, voice, and confidence. 

Each international collaboration widens the conversation around Sri Lankan practice, placing it in dialogue rather than isolation, and allowing artists to test their work against new audiences, histories, and ways of seeing. Each exhibition becomes an exercise in visibility, exchange, and persistence. 

Contour of Time grows from this context, with a group of five artists (two Sri Lankan, three Indian) with a shared history coming together for an exhibition that serves less as exposure and more as long-term artistic dialogue.

Under most circumstances, group exhibitions rely on cohesion. A shared aesthetic. A clear curatorial hand. Contour of Time, showing at Gallery Onkaf in New Delhi from 3 to 5 January 2026, resists all of that. The exhibition unfolds through proximity rather than polish. What binds the works is time itself – not as theme but as lived experience.

The exhibition brings together five artists from India and Sri Lanka whose connection stretches back to their postgraduate years at the Delhi College of Art around 2000. Since then, their lives and practices have moved across cities, institutions, and countries. What remains constant is work. Contour of Time marks a moment of return, not to a shared style, but to shared thinking shaped across decades.

A long conversation, not a reunion

For organiser Punkaj Manav, the exhibition grows from continuity rather than occasion. “Contour of Time is shaped by a long and enduring bond that began in our college days,” he explained. “Our journeys as artists have unfolded along distinct paths, yet remain connected by shared memories, struggles, and growth.”

Manav frames the exhibition as a mapping of transformation. Each work becomes a marker of a particular phase. Together, they chart how ideas and sensibilities shift through time. The exhibition feels less like a statement and more like a pause. A moment to look back without nostalgia and forward without urgency.

Manav’s own practice offers an entry point into this thinking. Raised in a family of teachers, he describes education as a necessity rather than an option. His earliest influence came from his mother, who painted, shaping his sensitivity to form and space. 

“From an early age, I was deeply curious about the world beyond convention,” he said. His early work centred on landscapes. Over time, representation loosened, giving way to abstraction grounded in mystic and philosophical inquiry.

“My creative process is a journey into a mystical world,” Manav noted. “I traverse intangible formations. Travel, music, and poetry shape that space.” Working across canvas, paper, and sculptural media, the works shown here reflect different phases of that journey. None seek recognisable form. The emphasis rests on process rather than outcome.

Memory as material

If Manav’s abstraction turns inwards, memory drives the work of Milan Sharma. For Sharma, Contour of Time reads as a lived metaphor. 

“As a group and as an individual, we have experienced time itself,” she said. “For me, it is a journey to my past, where moments return as memories – sometimes good, sometimes sad.”

Raised in India, Sharma grew up immersed in storytelling through her father, a poet whose words shaped her early imagination. “His poems and stories stayed with me,” she recalled. “When I encountered visual art, storytelling became my canvas.” 

That narrative impulse remains present in her work, although it resists illustration. Oils and mixed media allow memories to settle gradually, layered and unresolved.

Freedom sits at the centre of her practice. “My favourite thing about being an artist is freedom,” Sharma said. “Freedom brings new ideas onto the canvas.” 

In her work, time appears as accumulation rather than chronology. Emotional experiences return altered, carrying different weight with each revisiting.

Myth and interior life

For Dilini Perera, time unfolds through myth and interiority. Her engagement with ‘narilatha,’ a mythical flowering vine often linked to feminine allure, becomes a metaphor for personal fantasy and lived experience. Rather than illustrating folklore, Perera turns inwards, using myth as a language for desire, identity, and introspection.

Exhibiting in Delhi carries particular resonance. “Showing our work here is a big opportunity,” she reflected. “For Sri Lankan artists, these chances remain rare.” 

Yet Perera avoids framing the exhibition as a breakthrough. This is not her first group show in India, nor is distance treated as an obstacle. “Carrying our work here is not difficult anymore,” she said. The familiarity comes from longstanding relationships formed during shared study.

That shared history matters. “Manoranjana studied for the MFA in the same batch with them,” she noted. “Our bond goes back to 2000. We have stayed connected. This is not only an art show. It is a meeting point of our thoughts and feelings.”

Intimacy as inquiry

Relationships anchor the recent work of Manoranjana Herath. His series ‘The Kiss’ explores connection between man and woman beyond the physical. “It is not a physical kiss,” he explained. “It is a bond of souls.” The works circle intimacy as emotional and spiritual terrain, shaped by trust, tension, and vulnerability.

For Herath, showing in India holds both professional and personal weight. “Exhibiting in New Delhi is important,” he said. “It is a big opportunity for us.” 

Yet, like Perera, he frames the exhibition as continuation rather than arrival. Plans for further international shows already sit ahead, approached with measured intent rather than urgency.

Time appears as layered memory in the work of Mahendra Singh Baoni. His practice draws from museums, heritage sites, and the cultural density of central India. 

“My creative journey owes a lot to traditional and historical elements,” he said. These influences surface through overlapping forms and recurring imagery rather than direct reference.

Working primarily with gouache, acrylic, and oil, Baoni builds surfaces where impressions sit alongside one another. “Memories overlap,” he explained. “Images return as time overlaps.” 

His interest in South Asian visual lineages remains present, even as the work moves towards abstraction. The result feels sedimented rather than resolved.

A shared rhythm

What unites Contour of Time is not aesthetic cohesion but duration. Most of the artists studied together. They have exhibited together before, including in Sri Lanka, engaging with artists, academics, and students. These exchanges sit quietly beneath the exhibition. Collaboration appears here as long conversation rather than shared output.

Gallery Onkaf provides a fitting setting. The space allows the artwork to breathe. Viewers move between abstraction, memory, myth, and cultural reflection without imposed hierarchy. The exhibition does not instruct. It invites.

Contour of Time avoids spectacle. It resists immediacy. Instead, it offers a slower rhythm, shaped by sustained practice and shared history. Each work marks a moment. Together, they trace lives shaped by art, and art shaped by time.