After Pressure: Mahalakshmi Kannappan: Art Paris 2026
Upcoming exhibition
Press release
Mahalakshmi Kannappan (b. 1981, India)’s work is based on the transformation of materials, mainly reconstituted charcoal and plaster. The Singapore-based artist explores themes of impermanence, rupture, and silent endurance, often allowing the materials to carry their own tension and memory. The colour black, with its varied shades, serves as a foundational element in her work and represents a spectrum of experiences and emotions, embodying both the depth of the past and movement of the present. The darkest shades reflect the weight of memory and time, while the lighter tones suggest movement and transformation. This gradation allows Mahalakshmi to explore the balance between permanence and change, capturing the essence of fleeting moments while acknowledging their ongoing evolution.
Mahalakshmi Kannappan's work has been exhibited extensively in Singapore, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan. The artist has had solo exhibitions, notably at the Gajah Gallery (Singapore) and the Srishti Gallery (Hyderabad, India), and her work has been presented at numerous fairs, such as Art SG, Art Jakarta, SEA Focus, and several editions of the India Art Fair in Mumbai and Delhi.
The works in the “After Pressure” series presented at Art Paris consider what remains once force has already withdrawn. The surfaces are built through layering, compression, and partial rupture, but they do not present the moment of impact. Instead, they hold its residue.
Each form stabilises after disturbance. Edges soften, materials settle, and fragments are reabsorbed into a contained structure. The surface becomes a site where pressure is no longer visible, but still active.
The works examine a quiter condition—where material has endured, adjusted, and continues to hold what has passed.
Cuturi Gallery’s Art Paris 2026 presentation will be on view at Booth I8, Grand Palais, 7 avenue Winston Churchill, 75008 Paris, from 9-12 April 2026.
Works
