Sameer Kulavoor (b.1983) is a visual artist living and working in Mumbai, India. Having closely witnessed the rapid transformation of urban surroundings and culture in India in the 90s (results of economic liberalisation and the internet boom), Kulavoor’s innate approach is to constantly note and understand the impact that time, culture, politics and socio-economic conditions have on our visible and invisible surroundings. His works often address how and why cities look and work the way they do by filtering, dissecting, defamiliarizing and documenting commonly seen subjects and events – often oscillating between instinctive and conceptual methods of making. Through the early 2000s, Kulavoor became widely known for his design and illustration work and set up one of the earliest specialised studios of its kind in India – Bombay Duck Designs. Over the next decade, Kulavoor moved on to focus on his solo art practice that has taken the form of drawings, paintings, videos, sculptures, murals, books, zines and art-prints.

He is represented in India by TARQ Mumbai.

SELECT PRESENTATIONS

SOLO

2023 Edifice Complex – TARQ, Mumbai, India
2020 You are all caught up – TARQ, Mumbai, India.
2018 A man of the crowd – TARQ, Mumbai, India.
2016 Please have a seat – Serigraphs at Artisans’, Kalaghoda, Mumbai, India.
2012 The Ghoda Cycle Project – Bicycle Film Festival, Helsinki, Finland.

GROUP

2023 Metromorphosis – Mumbai Urban Art Festival by St+Art India, Mumbai, India.
2022 India Art Fair, TARQ booth, Delhi, India.
2022 Event, Memory, Metaphor – TARQ, Mumbai, India.
2021 State of Mind : Between Dysphoria and Hope – Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India.
2021 Lokame Tharavadu – Alappuzha, Kerala, India.
2020 Resurgence – (online) TARQ, Mumbai, India.
2020 India Art Fair, TARQ booth, Delhi, India.
2019 SqW:Lab Fellowship Closing Exhibition – Mumbai, India.
2019 The Shifting City – Gallery MMB, Goethe Institut, Mumbai, India.
2019 India Art Fair, TARQ booth, Delhi, India.
2017 Parfum Sassoon – Sassoon Dock Art Project by St+Art India, Mumbai, India.
2013 Faith – Lokal Helsinki, Finland.
2010 Ten artists and a fort – FILTER, Mumbai, India.

PUBLIC ART/MURALS

2021 Emergence, The Show Windows, Coventry, UK.
2021 Lokame Tharavadu – Alappuzha beach stage, Kerala, India.
2021 Mumbai 400001 – Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai.
2019 Social Media Friendly Plants – St+Art India, Lodhi colony, Delhi, India.
2017 High Five – Artisans’ Kalaghoda, Mumbai, India.
2014 The Great North Road Mural, Zoomslide, Auckland, New Zealand.

CURATION & SELF-PUBLISHING

2023 EVERYDAYINDIA – Graphic Design and multiplicity from gullies to high streets – Research, show curation and book design with Zeenat Kulavoor. A BARO Market presentation at 47-A Design Gallery, Mumbai.
2020 EverydayZine – a series of zines that broadly looks at ‘everyday’ from different perspectives. In an effort to explore new formats of art books and storytelling, each volume is an experiment created using images and words by an artist and a writer. Curation and design collaboration with Zeenat Kulavoor & Phalguni Desai.
2010 Hundred Percent Zine (100%ZINE) Concept and Curation with Lokesh Karekar.