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Drawing Room: Hemangini Maharaul on Nikhil Chopra’s art in motion
What happens when Nikhil Chopra builds personas as he creates his gigantic works? Both artist and art are transformed
Nikhil Chopra is a man of many faces. Some remember him with kohl-rimmed eyes, pairing a turban with denims. Others recall those kohl-rimmed eyes against ostentatious drag costumes. Some have seen him in crisply tailored suits and embellished mojris. Wasn’t he once also a Victorian adventurer?
They’re all correct answers. These are the personas that the artist has adopted for his politically and emotionally charged works. Most people, when asked to think about performance art, may recall how Yayoi Kusama put polka-dot-covered human models on public display in the 1960s. Or how Yoko Ono once invited audience members to cut off pieces of clothing from her body. Or that moment in 2009 when Inder Salim cut off the little finger of his left hand and threw it into the Yamuna. It’s art created by performance. But with Chopra, it’s something more.
He has called his work a “straightforward act of drawing and performing at the same time”. It includes aspects of theatre (acting, set design, costume and makeup), as well as photography and video documentation. It also often includes traditional modes of art: Drawing, painting and installation.
A good entry point to understanding him is Lands, Waters & Skies, which he performed over nine days in 2019, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He engaged with the museum’s vast collection, wearing a variety of costumes inspired by the objects on display while simultaneously painting large landscapes. But most of all, in an enclosed space, Chopra embodied the life of a pastoralist, migrating from one grassland to another, across the highlands with his herd, living under his handmade shelter amidst open skies, vast lands and pristine waters.
Many viewers see Lands Waters & Skies as a comment on the colonial appropriation of local culture and the traditions of the colonised. But at the Met, it may also have brought a different world into New York City, one where people’s lives are dependent on nature, and the sustenance it provides.
Much of Chopra’s works draw from his early life – he was born in Calcutta and would spend summer with his grandparents in Kashmir. The natural beauty of the region, coupled with his grandfather’s interest in painting landscapes are obvious influences on his work. He also lost his sister in a car accident at a young age – it’s not hard to see how his work makes the most of fleeting moments and the transience of life.
I admire how both his drawings and performances hold tension in them, even as he adds layers of softness by incorporating moments of poise between sudden movements. The language and manner in which he performs is entirely his own – the art of movement and creation is seamless. One of his many roles is curating the ongoing Kochi Muziris Biennale. I’m keen to see how curating something of this massive scale will affect his artistic practice in the future.
Artist Bio: Hemangini Maharaul’s conceptual landscape drawings and engravings explore the gradual disappearance of traditional knowledge in mountain territories.
From HT Brunch, December 27, 2025
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