After Pressure: Mahalakshmi Kannappan: Art Paris 2026

Cuturi Gallery is delighted to present a series of new works by Mahalakshmi Kannappan (b. 1981, India) at the 28th Edition of Art Paris.

 

Mahalakshmi Kannappan is a Singapore-based visual artist originally from India. Her practice is grounded in material transformation, working primarily with reconstituted charcoal and plaster. She explores themes of impermanence, rupture, and quiet endurance, often allowing the materials to carry their own tension and memory.

 

The works from the After Pressure series presented at Art Paris consider what remains once force has withdrawn. Built through layering, compression, and partial rupture, the surfaces do not depict the moment of impact, but hold its residue. Forms stabilise 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, yet still active. The works examine a quieter condition—where material has endured, adjusted, and continues to hold what has passed.

 

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 the 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 the artist 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 across Singapore, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan. She has held solo exhibitions, notably at Gajah Gallery (Singapore) and Srishti Art Gallery (Hyderabad, India), and her work has been presented at numerous art fairs, including Art SG, Art Jakarta, S.E.A. Focus, and several editions of the India Art Fair in New Delhi and Mumbai.

 

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.