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Rithika Merchant

@rithikamerchant

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For enquiries: @tarqmumbai @galerielj

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"The Dreaming Realm" by @rithikamerchant is now open and on view thru November 21, 2026.
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#rithikamerchant #galerielj taken in Galerie LJ by @rithikamerchant

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3 days ago

[UPCOMING] Our next show will open just before Paris busy art fair week.
🌱Please join us Friday, October 16, to celebrate "The Dreaming Realm", @rithikamerchant third solo exhibition with us. It will be on view thru November 21 at the gallery.

📷 Detail of: Rithika Merchant, SOFT SONGS, 2026, 75x100cm, Gouache, watercolour, ink and gel pen on paper
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#rithikamerchant #galerielj taken in Galerie LJ by @rithikamerchant

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10 days ago

Handout design for Rithika Merchant’s seven-frame installation, As the Universe, So The Soul, presented at Art Basel 2026.

The handout is a six-fold accordion, with its form inspired by the installation itself, which is mounted on a seven-frame wood and acrylic screen.

One side features the artwork, while the other includes an essay by Ranjit Hoskote and Rithika’s biography.
The titles are printed in a vibrant red, drawing from the artist’s use of red as an accent in her work.

5-colour offset printed on 120 gsm Tango Smooth Neutral paper the handout features a deep blue, as a special Pantone shade.

Team Bombay Duck Designs:
Zeenat Kulavoor, Shreya Mitragotri, Dnyanesh Patale, Jaya Dharmarajan

Artworks by: @rithikamerchant
Essay by: @rhoskote
Produced by: @tarqmumbai
Printed by: @jakprinters

June 2026 by @rithikamerchant

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11 days ago

Takeover by @gustavhjelmgren

RITHIKA MERCHANT @rithikamerchant
Born 1986, India

I absolutely love Rithika Merchant’s work. There is something about this world of plants, bodies, animals and symbolic forms that I can look at again and again.

For me there is a strong spiritual dimension to the work, and I think that is one of the things I’m most drawn to. Everything seems connected, humans, animals, plants, the earth and the cosmos. The paintings sometimes feel almost like maps of an inner or imaginary world, filled with symbols and stories that you somehow recognise without necessarily knowing what they mean.

Rithika draws from mythology, nature and stories from different cultures, bringing these references together into a visual language of her own. I love that you can enter the paintings without having to understand every symbol. They can simply be experienced, mysterious, beautiful and full of life.

Born in Mumbai, Rithika studied Fine Arts at Parsons in New York and now divides her time between Mumbai and Barcelona. She has exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions at @tarqmumbai in Mumbai, @kristinhjellegjerdegallery in London and @galerielj in Paris.

A small Swedish connection, Rithika was also included in Mentors at @cfhillofficial in Stockholm in 2021.

She has also collaborated with @chloe across several collections, translating elements of her visual world into prints and artworks for the fashion house.

Definitely an artist I would love to see much more of in person.

Images via @rithikamerchant / Instagram by @rithikamerchant

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17 days ago

[UPCOMING] "The Dreaming Realm", the third solo exhibition by @rithikamerchant in Paris, will be presented from October 16 to November 21, 2026.

👑 "The Dreaming Realm" continues the narrative odyssey that Rithika Merchant has been unfolding across her successive series since 2020. In this new chapter she draws on biomimicry to design architectural forms inspired by plant and organic mechanisms.
Her ongoing series also marks a milestone focused on social organization, interdependence, reciprocity between species and knowledge sharing.
📷 Detail of "Dreaming Realm", 2026, Gouache, watercolor, ink and gel pen on paper, 99x150cm
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#rithikamerchant #galerielj taken in Galerie LJ by @rithikamerchant

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a month ago

Rithika Merchant is part of a group show at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York. The exhibition, titled 'Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions', explores the origins of tarot in Renaissance Italy and its contemporary relevance as an enduring source of inspiration for twentieth- and twenty-first-century artists. If you are in New York, don’t miss it – on view until 4 October 2026.

'Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions' is organised by Joshua O’Driscoll, Melvin R. Seiden Curator and Department Head of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, and Frank Trujillo, Sherman Fairchild Director of the Thaw Conservation Center. Modern Visions is organized by Claire Gilman, Acquavella Curator and Department Head of Modern and Contemporary Drawings, with Esther Levy, Curatorial Assistant, Modern and Contemporary Drawings.

Pictured: Rithika Merchant, The Hermitess, 2021, 35 x 25 cm / 13.7 x 9.8 inches, Gouache, watercolour and ink on paper.

[Rithika Merchant, Contemporary Art, Watercolour on Paper, New York, South Asian Artist, TARQ] taken in The Morgan Library & Museum by @rithikamerchant

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2 months ago

Eruption ✨️

Looking forward to sharing new works this October in Paris @galerielj

#rithikamerchant #largeformatwatercolor by @rithikamerchant

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2 months ago

A fragment, an emanation ✨️

#rithikamerchant #watercolouronpaper by @rithikamerchant

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3 months ago

Back in the studio after a few weeks off. Slowly getting ready for my upcoming show with @galerielj this October. ✨️

#rithikamerchant #watercolouronpaper by @rithikamerchant

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3 months ago

On view above the streets of Woolloomooloo for one more day, enter the imagined world of Rithika Merchant.

For the Artspace Banner Series, ‘Empirical Study’ reimagines how we understand the universe – blending science fiction, mythology and Eastern spiritual traditions into richly detailed speculative landscapes.

Rather than narratives of conquest or control, Merchant’s beings navigate the cosmos through sensation, collectivity and shared knowledge, inviting us to consider alternative ways of sensing and relating to the world around us.

Until 30 June.

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The Banner series is generously supported by Andrew Cameron AM and Cathy Cameron taken in Artspace Sydney by @rithikamerchant

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4 months ago

Looking back at the past week at Art Basel! We had a memorable debut at Art Basel 2026, and are grateful to each one of you who visited our booth in the Statements Sector.

It was a pleasure to present Rithika Merchant's paintings, which serve as a reminder of the importance of peaceful coexistence in today’s world.

[Art Basel, Indian Contemporary Art, South Asian Art, Art Fair, TARQ] taken in Art Basel by @rithikamerchant

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4 months ago

Art Basel 2026 | Rithika Merchant's paintings, rendered in watercolour and gouache, serve as portals into a parallel reality, rooted in our understanding of community, spirituality, and human potential.

In an essay accompanying her solo presentation at Art Basel, Ranjit Hoskote writes, "Mythic constants and historical variables come together in Merchant’s fluid temporality; her phantasmagorical frames attest to an interplay between vigilance and trance. This art is not steeped in idyllic nostalgia. Rather, it gestures allegorically towards redemptive pathways into the future. Rithika Merchant’s key themes of cyclic renewal and planetary regeneration offer us the necessary antidote of hope at a particularly bleak moment in our collective experience."

Discover Rithika's latest work at our booth in the Statements Sector (Booth M15) at Art Basel. The fair continues till 21 June 2026.

[Art Basel, Indian Contemporary Art, South Asian Art, Speculative Worldbuilding, Watercolour, TARQ] taken in Art Basel by @rithikamerchant

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4 months ago