Manjunath Kamath

Manjunath Kamath (b. 1972, Mangalore, Karnataka) works in painting, drawing, digital collage, and terracotta sculpture. He studied sculpture at the Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts, Mysore, graduating in 1994, and later received the Charles Wallace Scholarship to work at the School of Art and Design, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff.

Kamath breaks apart traditional iconography. His paintings pull from classical European art, Persian and Indian miniatures, and Yakshagana folk theater, then fracture these sources into pieces, a hand here, part of a bird there, the curve of a cheek, and reassemble them with geometric patterns, textile prints, and architectural ornament. The surfaces build up through repeated layering until they resemble mosaics with missing tiles. The gaps are deliberate.
He recreates the erosion that happens to objects over centuries. The distortions and missing sections in his work mirror how history actually gets transmitted, with breaks and misalignments. Cultural elements collide by accident in his paintings, not by design.

His terracotta "Bojh Series" uses truncated torsos holding up cornucopias filled with architectural fragments, organic matter, and archaeological debris. The figures support what they carry but also seem weighed down by it.
Kamath has held solo exhibitions at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia (2015), and Gallery Espace, New Delhi. He presented "Archival Erasures" at Abu Dhabi Art in 2019. His work has appeared in numerous group exhibitions in India and internationally, including shows at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai; Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi; and ARCO Art Fair, Madrid (2009).

His paintings and sculptures are part of public collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Sacred Art in Belgium, Kiran Nadar Museum of Modern Art, and National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

The artist lives and works in New Delhi.