Tathi Premchand, an artist who questions what we have come to know as “civilisation” - is it truly the desired end or is it that which is a consumptive social order edging toward the dilution of the very life we seek to civilise and sanitise. Tethered between strings of impulse and awareness - it stitches through the overcomplicated mess of the grand emptiness we have come to recognize as human existence.
His work resists passive viewing, the painting you see hung on the wall isn’t a piece that would charm your space, rather its a character sitting across and asking the questions one may be too naive to even gauge. It contradicts the sense of orderly sanity, inviting viewers to recognize their primitive instincts, contradictions, and unresolved tensions which quietly shape the everyday ordinary. Tathi Premchand metamorphs personal instincts, readily existing in all humans, shifting forms, suggesting that civilization is merely a disguise of the ancient wilderness that continues to influence thought, action, and relationships - within and without.
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| Artist: Tathi Premchand - Goa |
The very urge to streamline that wilderness has led to the collapse of cohesiveness in urban society – in His renowned Indian Mathematical Ruler series (2006–2007), he critiques political and social disparity, juxtaposing technological progress with the struggles of the labor class. The larger machinery functions while the cogs depreciate, and eventually get discarded, replaced. The machine survives, while the very cogs which made it come to life, fall apart – at times, unnoticed, at times just squelched – a sacrifice to the greater function. But is that truly “greater” ?
He views the world from the lens of the simplistic disposition it attains when bearing the common yoke, and yet attains the poetic quality of rhythmic alacrity that conforms - but never confirms. In his work, urban existence is portrayed as collective solitude. Just as Kabir’s vehement opposition of the caste system and hereditary hierarchies Tathi Premchand emphasizes through his creation how crowded spaces become uncharted sites of surrender where human bodies merge into unindividual, invisible support– like the handles hung from the ceiling of a local. In these fleeting pauses, strangers discover an instinctive search for comfort which echoes their childhood dependence, revelling in metropolitan movement.
However, the very collectivity of such transience had also made the collective- un collected, unabridged, unbridled - escalating to a time where the seriousness of everyday life has been lost in conformity to the illusion of the eventual ever after, leading to the maze that never ends, only displaces. A trap of infinity, nonetheless, an infinity still. Drawing from Osho’s Philosophy, Tathi Premchand focuses radical emphasis on individual freedom. Rather than a rigid set of doctrines, it centers on living spontaneously, embracing the present, and balancing worldly joy with deep spiritual awareness.
His ongoing endeavour, the drawing books - since 2005, having continued since decades and yet to journey so much and so forth, serve not as sketchpads of afterthought, rather become a living archive of the fluidity of everyday life, aging, becoming and unbecoming through the cross sections of timescapes, not confined to any particular themes or limited by its scope, the books expand and breathe, much like the larger overarching themes of Tathi Premchand's world - the theme of life in the metropolitan, what it negotiates and bargains and what it cannot, even if it thinks it can.
The work and life of artists, such as William Kentridge and David Hockney, have greatly inspired Tathi Premchand’s world. David Hockney is always a third party observer putting the reality on paper using pen drawing. William Kentridge uses scribbled papers for his expression of reality.
Titles also play a prominent role in his creations. Grounded in the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha), it centers on rigorous self-inquiry, where the personal, the political and the technical reality enter the visual landscape that gardens manipulation, spectacle, and compliance, where the supposed authority survives because repetition normalizes that which as a standalone may have seemed absurd, ordinary individuals carry the burden of systems they neither create nor fully control.
Technically, his approach to the medium is expansive employing the usage of Charcoal, ink, spray paint, pencil, colour pastel, and watercolour. He experiments with surfaces, layering, and even the geometry of composition itself. Many of his layouts are based on the golden ratio, with graph paper often serving as a subtle guide beneath the forms.
Ultimately, the universe of Tathi Premchand asks but a simple, yet unsettling question, that, while the exteriors of life can be cleansed and instilled between mere limits, what restores the inner self?
- Dwishojoyee Banerjee
Delhi- 2026
Dwishojoyee Banerjee is a climate activist, social entrepreneur, and curator from Patna, Bihar, based in Delhi. An Economics graduate from the University of Delhi, she is an Ashoka Young Changemaker and BeVisioneers–Mercedes-Benz Fellow committed to turning climate awareness into tangible action. She is the founder of The Soft Movement, whose Paper Bag Project has empowered 5,000+ students across 31 cities, replacing over 500,000 single-use plastic bags. She is currently curating Material Practices, an ongoing series at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, exploring the intersection of art, ecology, and everyday materials.
Nippon Gallery
30/32, 2nd Floor, Deval Chambers, Nana Bhai Lane, Flora Fountain, Fort, Mumbai – 400001
RSVP: Nippon Gallery
