Shivangi Kalra
Breath of Fresh Air

Opening   22.01.
                h 18:30 ­­­­– 21

22.01.
28.02.26
Milan

Galleria Doris Ghetta is pleased to present a solo exhibition in Milan by Shivangi Kalra (Delhi, 1998), whose painting explores memory, domestic spaces, and the subtle dynamics of social life.

Drawing on personal recollections of Delhi’s rapidly changing social and architectural landscape, Kalra constructs scenes that unfold between intimacy and quiet theatricality. Her paintings transform familiar interiors and façades into stages where the visible and the concealed coexist, and where gestures, glances, and spatial arrangements become narrative clues. The past emerges not as a linear account, but as a constellation of fragments: overheard conversations, rehearsed poses, moments of excess or quiet detachment.

Throughout the exhibition, figures appear behind blinds, inside cars, on terraces, or framed by windows, inhabiting spaces marked by privilege, expectation, and the pressure to perform. Rather than offering social critique, Kalra approaches these environments with a gentle irony and empathy, revealing the emotional textures beneath polished surfaces. Melancholy shifts into humour, extravagance into vulnerability, and stillness into a subtle form of resistance.

The exhibition title, A Breath of Fresh Air, suggests both a pause and a release. It evokes the exhibition’s underlying rhythm, inviting viewers to slow down and linger within these porous spaces, where memory becomes vaporous and meaning emerges in the tension between what is shown and what remains implied.