Becoming UnBecoming: Santosh Kumar Das: Mumbai Gallery Weekend 2026
Becoming UnBecoming, Santosh Kumar Das's new works, is a paean to a childhood shaped by fantasy and imagination, transformation and identity.
“As a child, I was totally captivated by the desire to become someone else.” This lifelong obsession shapes Santosh Kumar Das’s artistic journey today.
Rooted in the visual language of Mithila traditions, yet informed by a Western art education, Das occupies a distinctive position between two philosophies of image-making: one grounded in communal ritual and shared symbolism, the other shaped by individual artistic inquiry and introspective self-reflection. This dual orientation informs both the contemporary form and conceptual framework of the series.
Das’s childhood unfolded amid fairs, films, fables, and fantasies. During festivals, he spent countless hours mesmerised by artisans who animated clay, transforming inert matter into deities whose presence felt transcendent and alive. Reflecting on this formative experience, Das recalls:
“I wondered what my world would be if I were to turn into one of those idols… I think, deep down, I was unconsciously initiated into a mystical way of seeing, being, and becoming. Just as an actor, through a concept called Parkaya Pravesh, enters the body of another, to become is un-becoming.”
“Growing up in Mithila, sacred images never felt separate from real life,” Das reflects. Anthropologists describe this engagement with sacred imagery as a form of embodied seeing—a mode of perception in which ritual images are not merely observed, but felt as animate, living presences rather than symbolic representations.
This lifelong exploration of transformation reflects a worldview in which identity is never fixed, but continually negotiated. Das' lingering childhood wish lies at the heart of the Becoming UnBecoming series:
“I always wanted to become a god, appearing both real and imagined - calm, pristine, magical, supernatural, mythical, fantastical, even illogical.”
Becoming UnBecoming invites viewers into a space of imaginative becoming, where materiality, memory, and the metaphysical continually shape and reshape one another.
About Santosh Kumas Das
Santosh Kumar Das's inherited Mithila painting style is from Madhubani, Bihar, where he continues to live. Unlike other Madhubani artists, Das trained in both Indian and Western art traditions. Born in 1962, he graduated in English from Darbhanga, and gained a Bachelor of Fine Art at M.S.U, Baroda in 1990.
The roots of Mithla art are deep. Women of the Brahman, Dusadh, and Kayasth communities illustrate epics and folktales, along with everyday life, as they decorate the walls and floors of their homes to celebrate birth, marriage, and religious festivals.
In the 1960’s, the genre grew in popularity as drought relief efforts brought new opportunities for livelihood and patronage into the area. By 2003 Das served as Director of The Ethnic Arts Foundation’s Mithila Art Institute, where students responded to contemporary issues, empowering themselves through art.
In 2017, ARTISANS' launched Das' autobiographical book, Black, published by Tara Books. Lauded in India and abroad, Das' works can be found in museum and institutional collections, including Sarmaya Arts Foundation, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in India; and the Oberlin Museum, the Ethnic Art Foundation, and the Art Institute of Chicago, in the USA.