Debjani was born in Kolkata, India and completed her Masters in Business Management at Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi , India . She started her career as a financial analyst in New Delhi. She later moved into the field of art in the year 2007 and completed MA Fine Arts at the Open College of the Arts, UK. She is a multidisciplinary artist and expresses herself through sculpture(ceramics,paper), illustration, papercuts and printmaking. Working with her hands fascinates her and she prefers tactile, labour-intensive, process-oriented methods of creating. She is a visual storyteller and loves stories with a certain element of surprise. She had her first solo exhibition “Spindle Shuttle Needle” in Tashkeel House Bastakiya in 2011. Her second
solo exhibition “Seeing the Invisible” was held in 2014 in Centre Franco Omanais, Muscat and her third solo exhibition “Telling Tales” was held in Tashkeel Gallery in 2018. Her fourth solo exhibition” Dreams within Dreams” was held in the Foundry Dubai 2022. She has illustrated two children’ s books “World Tales “a book of folk tales written by the students of Dubai International Academy (2009 ) and “A Magic Place” a book of short stories used by middle school children in India (2010).
I am a visual storyteller driven by narrative impulses found within legend and folklore. Prompted by my curiosity, I explore what could lay beneath the surface and the unseen. Only a ghost of the original version, vaguely familiar yet unrecognisable, remains in my interpretation of each epic tale. As I give focus to peripheral characters and transient moments, my interventions become contemporary re-imaginings where the ambiguous, unreliable, skewed and incomplete are conveyed through a subverted, emblematic language. Akin to the ‘exquisite corpses’ genre, multiple tales entwine in ever-changing sequences (within which I occasionally impose myself); each a figurative vignette drawn from muffled memories, unremembered but not forgotten dreams that flout the laws of plausibility and possess a twisted chronology. I am inclined towards the linking of seemingly unconnected realities, placing them in surrealist settings in the spirit of Lautréamont’s famous metaphor “beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella.” I take everyday objects and playfully alter them to generate bizarre juxtapositions that subtly prompts the viewer to question his own eyes or, at the very least, shift perspective.
My work is fragile and intricate with notions of both tenderness and unease – perceived so beautiful that the viewer is instinctively drawn in. Once trapped inside like an insect in a Venus flytrap, I invite the viewer into intimate, innocuous-looking spaces to play games,prompting a sense of discomfort as if witnessing an unsettling dream from which one cannot awaken.
1986-1989 B Com Honours, Delhi University, New Delhi, India
1990-1992 BA Finance, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India
2013-2016 MA Fine Arts at the Open College of the Arts,University for the Creative Arts, UK, Merit Holder
“Immortal Tales, Fantastical Fables” , Threshold Gallery, New Delhi, March 2024
“Dreams within Dreams” solo exhibition at Foundry Gallery 5, Dubai, September 2022
“Telling Tales” , Tashkeel Gallery, September 2018
“Seeing the Invisible”, Centre Franco Omanais, Muscat, November 2014
“Spindle Shuttle Needle”, Tashkeel House, Al Fahidi District, DubaiMay 2011
“From Kalila wa Dimna to La Fontaine , Travelling through Fables,” The Louvre Abu Dhabi, March 2024
“Myth Making & Divine Animals” , Threshold Gallery, New Delhi, March 2023
Mumbai Art Fair represented by Gallery Threshold , October 2023
“The Philosophy of Food” , Tashkeel Gallery, Dubai , March 2022
“Sikka Art Festival”, Contemporary Art from Oman, Matti Servio Gallery, March 2022
“Made in Tashkee 2022, Tashkeel Art Gallery, Dubai, June 2022
“Omuma” , Fikra Gallery, Muscat, March 2021
“Made in Tashkeel” Tashkeel Gallery Dubai July 2021
Al Murrabba art festival organized by Ajman Tourism , UAE, October 2021
“Plastic” , Tashkeel Gallery, Dubai, March 2020
“Covid Conversations”, Tashkeel Gallery Dubai, November 2020
Oman International Art Fair , Oman Exhibition and Convention Centre, March 2019
“Telling Tales “Two person exhibition, Stal Gallery Muscat, April 2019
“ Confluence” exhibition of reputed artists from India and Oman organized by the
Indian Embassy in Oman at the Oman Society for Fine Arts , September 2019
“Portraits”, at Stal Gallery, Muscat, October 2017
“Connectivity”,Tashkeel,Dubai,UAE, March 2016
“Booked”, Art Centrix Gallery, New Delhi, India, April 2016
MA Degree Show XI , Civic Gallery, Barnsley, UK , June 2016
“The Seeker and the Sought” Art Centrix Gallery, New Delhi, November 2016
“Nectar in a Sieve”,Two person exhibition, Gallery Sarah, Muscat, January 2015
Sikka Art Fair, Design House, Illustration chosen in magazine “Fade Away and Illustrate”, March 2015
“Shadows of the Wind”, Installation in Bait Muzna Gallery, May 2015
“Made in Tashkeel 2015”, Dubai, UAE, May 2015
“Games People Play”,First Triannual Print Show,Museum of CAA, Hang Zhou,China, September 2015
“Black & White”Art Centrix Gallery, New Delhi, India, Muscat,October 2015
Small Works Exhibition”,Omani Society for Fine Arts, Muscat,October 2015
25th Annual Exhibition:Omani Society for Fine Arts, Muscat, November 2015
“The I Within”, Art Centrix Gallery, New Delhi, India, December 2015
“Art 100×100”, Bait Zubair Museum, Muscat, February 2014
“Its All Square”,Group Illustration Exhibition, JamJar Gallery, Dubai, April 2014
“Butterflies in my Stomach”, Three Person Exhibition, XVA Gallery, May 2014
” Chess “Book Exchange,Chaap Foundation,Baroda, January 2013
“Wild Things”Group Illustration Exhibition ,FNDesign Studios, Dubai, February 2013
“Paper” ,XVA Gallery,DIFC,Dubai, February 2013
“Metamorphosis”, Tashkeel Gallery, Dubai,March 2013
“The Infusion of Impossible Things”,three person Exhibition, XVA Hotel, Al Fahidi District, Dubai,March 2013
Art4Sight 2013, Christies Auction for Noor Foundation, Dubai, April 2013
“Mawtini”, Tashkeel Gallery ,Dubai , March 2012
“To the Moon”, XVA Gallery, Dubai , March 2012
“Made in Tashkeel 2012” , Tashkeel Gallery,Dubai , May 2012
“Making Marks” Postcard Print Exchange,Print Making Centre, New Jersey, July 2012
Wall Mural , Ghalyas Museum of Modern Art ,Muscat , November 2012
22nd Annual Exhibition ,Omani Society of Fine Arts , Muscat, December 2012
“Guess the Artist”, Ghaf Gallery, Abu Dhabi , February 2011
“Noun al Neswa “, Marsam Matar Gallery, Dubai,February 2011
“As the Saying Goes”, Tashkeel Gallery ,Dubai,March 2011
“Three Keys” , Group Exhibition of Illustrations, AUD ,Dubai, March 2011
“Made in Tashkeel 2011”, Tashkeel Gallery ,Dubai May 2011
“Creative Fund Raiser Plush Toy Project”, Nishant House ,Al Fahidi District,Dubai, March 2010
“Exhibition and Sale of Prints “, DUCTAC ,Dubai, May 2010
“Mega Toy Exhibition “, DIFC ,Dubai, May 2010
“Made in Tashkeel 2010”, Dubai, June 2010
“Express yourself in 30×30 “, Ghaf Gallery, Abu Dhabi, June 2010
“Print Exchange”,The Sketchbook Project, Brooklyn Art Library, New York,July 2010
“Kaliedoscope’ Group Exhibition by Indian and Emirati artists in Dubai, organized by
the Indian Embassy , Dubai Ladies Club , January 2009
“Silent Conversations”, Tashkeel Gallery, Dubai ,March 2009
“Made in Tashkeel 2009”, Tashkeel Gallery, Dubai, June 2009
“Art Oasis 2009” Group Exhibition on sustainability organized by JamJar , Eye of
Horus, Wafi Mall, Dubai, July 2009
“Night of 1000 Drawings”, Fund raiser for Palestinian Childrens’ Relief Fund ,Art
Sawa, Dubai ,November 2009
“Assumptions”, Zayed University Dubai, December, 2009
“0.06 &2 mm diameter” ,Zayed University, Dubai, December, 2009
“Vibrations Within”, Tashkeel Gallery, Dubai, March 2008
Scambio Art Residency at Cassadelacapra in Mergozzo Italy, May 2022
Dubai Artist Residency Programme by the Dubai Cultural Council: Was a resident artist at the Dubai Creek Avenue from 24th January 2008-24th February 2008. Works generated were exhibited by the council in a Group Exhibition, March 2008 ,Al Fahidi District Creek Art Fair 20, Dubai.
“Name Place Animal Thing” curated a sketchbook exhibition with 30 artists at Fikra
Gallery, Muscat, October 2021