GQ India, 2025
Inside Chromatic Currents, Singaporean artist Kumari Nahappan’s first-ever solo exhibition in India that celebrates chromatic energy and cultural memory
One of Southeast Asia’s leading contemporary artists, Kumari Nahappan’s practice is rooted in nature and cultural memory. The Malaysian-born Singaporean artist with Indian ancestry has spent the past three decades forging a distinctive visual language that reconciles the vocabulary of international contemporary art with her cultural roots and beliefs. Known for her vibrant canvases, sculptures, and large-scale installations, Nahappan’s work has traversed the intersections of colour, materiality, and cosmology, mapping a terrain where form and energy coalesce. And now, the 72-year-old, who is arguably Singapore's most recognised artist and has exhibited widely at the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), Seoul Art Centre, Museum der Kulturen (Basel), Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam), and in the collateral programme of the Venice Biennale, is revving up to hold her first-ever solo exhibition in India.