Kamayani Sharma

My experience as a critic, creative writer, researcher, translator and podcaster in the humanities and social sciences has helped me gain fluency in a diversity of discourses & registers. Currently, I am part of the Editorial & Content Strategy department at the Sharjah Art Foundation.

My critical and creative writing frequently appears in Indian and international publications. It has been recognised by the International Awards for Art Criticism, the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, the Kamala & Sitapati Ganesh Trust, the Serendipity Arts Foundation and the Toto Funds the Arts Awards. I run South Asia's first independent visual culture podcast - Artaलाप - streaming on all audio apps.

My translation practice is between English and Hindustani (Nāgri and Nasta'liq scripts) - my translation of Anu Singh Choudhary's 'Neela Scarf' (HarperCollins India, 2023) is out now.

Scroll.in • 18th June 2023

A robot in a 400-year-old painting of Jahangir is a lesson in how rulers project global power

Despite depicting a meeting that never happened, ‘Jahangir Entertains Shah Abbas’ is historically instructive.

Scroll.in • 30th May 2023

How did the Indian langur end up in a prehistoric mural in Greece?

For decades, researchers have been trying to identify the simians on a Minoan mural in Santorini. Are they African or Indian? Opinions are deeply divided.

Scroll.in • 2nd May 2023

How Mughal badshahs and begums became a source of inspiration for 19th-century French playing cards

Although un-subcontintental in colour tones, the Cartes Indiennes recall the nobles and attendants of South Asian painting, most famously Mughal miniatures.

Scroll.in • 4th April 2023

Durgabai Vyam interview: The Adivasi painter on how Gond art is responding to contemporary times

The Padma Shri recipient talks about her artistry, its past and future.

Scroll.in • 17th January 2023

A trove of ‘pornographic art’ is lying unappreciated in a sarkari library in Uttar Pradesh

Amid the Raza Library’s collection are paintings depicting a variety of carnal encounters that have never been reproduced in any book on Indian painting.

Scroll.in • 6th December 2022

When Nehru was baffled by Himmat Shah’s art: ‘I am an ignorant man. Explain this to me’

In a wide-ranging interview, Shah looks back on his free-spirited life and lays out his plans.

Scroll.in • 26th October 2022

At the Museum of Christian Art in Goa, glimpses of India’s artistic syncretism

Most objects at the museum, across types, reveal inspirations from the visual vocabulary of different parts of India.

Scroll.in • 11th October 2022

Drawing Hindu epics in Art Deco style, this Polish artist left behind a striking legacy

Stefan Norblin melded two disparate approaches to artmaking in the 20th century to create a very unique practice.

Scroll.in • 27th September 2022

‘In all my years, no gallery has represented me’: Savindra Sawarkar on Brahmanism in the arts

Sawarkar is the first Indian gallery artist to foreground the Dalit experience of caste as an aesthetic mode. In a broad interview, he talks about his practice.

Scroll.in • 13th September 2022

Why did Mughal emperor Jahangir issue these rare and singular astrology-themed coins?

The currency is unusual for various reasons: no other Indian coins have astrological imagery and those issued by Muslim rulers avoid figural decoration.

ART India • 21st August 2022

Anatomy of a Crisis | N.S. Harsha at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi

As people cope with a raging pandemic, N. S. Harsha maps changing collective behaviour and altering community life with empathy and irony, finds Kamayani Sharma.

Scroll.in • 11th August 2022

India’s answer to ‘MAD’ magazine has been sadly forgotten

‘Diwana’, which ran as a bilingual weekly from 1964 till 1986, featured some of India’s finest comic strip artists and reflected the zeitgeist.

Scroll.in • 23rd July 2022

The history of the mysterious Lajja Gauri found around India

This type of image has been found in countries around the world, from Egypt to Ireland.

Scroll.in • 2nd July 2022

Art logistics has come a long way since the time Ashoka pillars were shifted to Delhi

Moving fragile, expensive art requires more than just bubble wrap. It is a specialised, complex, painstaking work that has gro

Scroll.in • 9th June 2022

Remembering Sam Tata, the photographer who was equally at ease on the street and in the studio

Between taking portraits of everyone from Prithviraj Kapoor to Leonard Cohen, Tata teamed with Henri Cartier-Bresson to capture a snapshot of the 20th century.

Momus • 27th May 2022

Hypoxia and Hope

The palimpsest of [Shirazeh] Houshiary’s 'Breath' reminds me of India’s long history of syncretic, if not always euphonious, practices of breathing. Constitution notwithstanding, India’s secularism has been on a ventilator for a while. Through the crescendo of intermingling Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and Sufi incantations—the sounds that inspire the visuals— 'Breath' offers up the dream of syncretic harmony.

Artforum • 25th May 2022

Notes from a City Unknown | Seher Shah | Nature Morte, New Delhi

Review: Critic's Pick

Scroll.in • 4th May 2022

How medieval Jain pilgrimage maps afforded the faithful a darshan without any travel

Though the tirtha patas’ utilitarian heyday seems to be past, they remain an enduring aspect of community formation.

Art Asia Pacific • 1st May 2022

Walking with the waves | Atul Dodiya | KNMA, New Delhi

Made during a time of endangered sociality, “Walking with the waves” treated the self as a place of refuge and rediscovery, at the risk of becoming cryptic. It was in its renditions of social and ecological bonds, when the self opens out to the world, when the artist walks out from the gaping cave, that the show soared.

Scroll.in • 9th April 2022

In India, the world of NFTs suffers from the same inequalities as the world of traditional art

Although the NFT art market in India is still small, it hasn’t delivered the degree of egalitarianism it promised.

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