Between Mehak Garg’s figures exists another presence. It is not another body, but the air itself—dense, weighty and quietly insistent. Underpinning this body of work is the question of how to objectify air. Rather than treating atmosphere as the empty interval surrounding her subjects, Garg paints it as a tangible presence that occupies the space between figures and objects, shaping the emotional tenor of each scene.

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Garg’s paintings unfold largely within domestic interiors, spaces where intimacy and emotional distance coexist in fraught proximity. Figures frequently share the same room while remaining psychologically inaccessible to one another. Gesture, posture and the direction of a gaze become subtle indicators of interior worlds that resist disclosure. Garg is not drawn to moments of dramatic encounter, but to those quiet intervals in which a person remains physically present while attention drifts elsewhere—towards memory, anticipation or an interior dialogue invisible to those around them. These suspended moments, in which silence seems to speak, become the emotional ground from which the paintings emerge.

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The artist’s formal language is equally restrained. Although the prominence of the brushstroke shifts from painting to painting, mark making remains an intuitive extension of feeling rather than a predetermined formal strategy. Directional strokes retain a vivid physicality, preserving the trace of the artist’s presence within the work. The desaturated palette—dusty peaches, burnished oranges, mineral blues, waxen yellows and verdigris tones—compresses light and atmosphere into a quiet haze, lending the paintings a palpable sense of weight.

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Architecture, too, accumulates experience. Rooms cease to function as passive containers and instead become repositories of lived experience, carrying the residue of conversations, absences and shared histories that continue to inhabit the present. This attention to psychological space extends to the organisation of the paintings themselves. Diptychs and triptychs physically interrupt the continuity of the image, echoing the emotional separations experienced by the figures they depict.

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Although Garg often draws upon people she knows intimately as points of reference, her figures are not intended as portraits of specific individuals. They occupy emotional roles rather than fixed identities, becoming vehicles through which shared experiences of vulnerability, introspection and psychological distance unfold. As we linger on the paintings’ surfaces, another presence gradually reveals itself. Air becomes material, acquiring density, memory and emotional weight until it feels as palpable as the figures themselves.

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Written by Thara Parambi 

Thara Parambi is a London-based writer and artist. She has written texts, essays and editorial features for galleries and publications including Frieze. Her writing has a particular focus on emerging contemporary Indian artists and artistic practices.