Gunjan Chawla Kumar

Gunjan Chawla Kumar (b.1980) (she/her) is an American-Indian artist living and working in Chicago. Kumar is natively from Punjab, India and moved to the United States in 2011. Gunjan is a materialist and works with various pigments and textiles from around the world. She has spent many years traveling through India and other countries in South Asia observing age-old practices in textiles and indigenous arts. Her interest in archeology, particularly prehistoric cave paintings and related schools of art, plays an important role in carving her process and ideology. She is a textile graduate from National Institute of Design and Technology, New Delhi (2003) and holds a bachelor’s degree in arts from DAV College, Chandigarh, India (2001). Her works have been exhibited globally and are a part of noted private and public art collections worldwide.

Residencies:  Chicago Artist Coalition Residency, Chicago, IL, 2025–2027; Bridge Program, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, 2024; Chicago Art Department, Chicago, IL, 2021–Present; The Edward F. Albee Foundation, Montauk, NY, 2016

Grants & Awards: Sparks Grant, Chicago Artist Coalition, Chicago, IL, 2022; South Asian Arts Resiliency Fund, The India Center, NY, 2021; Propeller Impact Fund, Three Walls, Chicago, IL, 2020; Tip Coleman Scholarship for Nihonga, 2014; Most Creative Knitwear Design Collection at College Level and at the National Confluence ’03, NIFT, New Delhi, India, 2003

Select Publications: "A bloom for their thoughts," The New Indian Express, September 2024; "'The Sindhu Project: Enigma of roots' probes shared histories via art and archaeology," The Stir World, June 2022; "The story of a past," The News, December 2021; "More in Common, a review of The Sindhu Project: Enigma of Roots," Sixty Inches From Center, August 2021; "Art Exhibition In Chicago Explores Enigma Of Lost Indo-Pak Heritage," The Friday Times, August 2021; "Gunjan Kumar," The Currell Collection; "Cyclical Dialogues of Materials and Making," New Art Examiner, May 2017; "Sedimented," Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, February 2017; "Unfolding Matter: An Exhibition at Hubbard Street Lofts", Praeterita, October 2015

Solo and Two-Person Shows: The Sindhu Project – Iteration 2, New York, NY, New Delhi, IN, Lahore, PK, 2026; Untitled Solo Show, Exhibit 320, New Delhi, IN, 2025; Dialogue, TEDx Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2023; Sifr, Gallery Exhibit 320 / Art Dubai, Dubai, UAE, 2023; The Sindhu Project, Gallery Exhibit 320 in collaboration with the American Embassy, New Delhi, IN, 2022; The Sindhu Project, South Asia Institute, Chicago, IL and National College of Arts, Lahore, PK, 2021; MANIFESTATIONS, Gallery One after 909, Chicago, IL, 2019; SEDIMENTED, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, IL, 2017; Comma, Victorian House Art Gallery, Olivet Nazarene University, IL, 2017; What Lies Beneath, Chicago Art Department, Chicago, IL, 2017; Unfolding Matter, Fulton Street Collective, Chicago, IL, 2015

Collections: Kiran Nader Museum of Art, New Delhi, IN; South Asia Institute, Chicago, IL; The Currell Collection, London, UK; The Edward Albee Foundation, New York, NY; Other Private Collections

My observations delve into materials and processes that tell a story of self rooted in place, serving as sensory portraits of the inhibited and the bygone. Media used in the work such as organic and inorganic pigments, sheer Indian muslin, raw hand woven cotton, etc., activates physical and non-physical connections with my immediate and constantly changing relationship with the world. Process in the works is the message. Often a medium is selected, preferably in its elemental form. Next, it is intimately prepared and rendered. As the medium travels through the composition, it informs of its place and role, through the relationships that it builds. Therefore, an unhurried sense of time is an essential part of the process. Influences of indigenous practices, particularly prehistoric cave paintings and related schools of art play an important role in carving my process and ideology.