India Art Fair 2025 is taking Delhi by storm, bringing together a whopping 118 exhibiting galleries and institutions from across the globe. The 16th edition of the fair is its largest outing to date, and with so much to see and do at NSIC Exhibition Grounds, Okhla, one might find navigating the booths at this year’s India Art Fair (IAF) a somewhat daunting task. Our curated picks from the fair will ensure you get the most out of your IAF experience.

1. Arpita Akhanda: Emami Art

Emami Art is a young contemporary art gallery and production space in Kolkata, India, which began in 2017. It focuses on South Asian narratives and prominently presents artists who explore the region’s complex and interwoven histories and politics in their work. It represents practices such as interdisciplinary artist Debashish Paul and painter Suman Dey.

Arpita Akhanda is one of the artists that Emami is presenting at IAF 2025. Raised in a family of Bangladeshi migrants who moved to India during the violent partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, Akhanda’s cross-disciplinary work engages with the intergenerational trauma of the horrific event, exploring its lasting effects on the psyche of the subcontinent.

Akhanda’s work will sit among others at booth F03 as part of the art exhibition Polyphonic Confluences. The show seeks to challenge mainstream perspectives around topics such as beauty, power and knowledge through artistic voices that have been shaped by specific cultural contexts, such as Akhanda’s.

2. Abir Karmakar: Nature Morte

Nature Morte is a contemporary art gallery in Delhi that emphasises blue-chip artists and experimentation. Peter Nagy opened the gallery in 1997, and since then has nurtured many acclaimed Indian practices, such as contemporary artists Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, and emerging star Ayesha Singh.

The gallery is showing Indian artist Abir Karmakar at booth A01 at this year’s fair. Karmakar creates photorealistic oil paintings and life-size installations of domestic interiors. His works explore the lasting legacy of colonialism in the Indian subcontinent through his blurring of Indian and Western pictorial styles and domestic objects. The booth features his paintings among a selection of works by other artists on the gallery’s roster.

3. Vikrant Bhise: Anant Art

Anant Art is a Delhi-based contemporary art gallery which opened its doors in 2003 and has presented works by the likes of the historically important Indian modernist Gulam Mohammad Sheikh and the Bengali contemporary artist Probir Gupta.

Anant Art is at booth B13, where it is showing work by various artists on its roster, including the Mumbai-based painter Vikrant Bhise. Bhise’s art tackles the topic of caste-based discrimination in India, often channelling the values of the civil rights activist Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891 – 1956).

4. Vasantha Yogananthan: Jhaveri Contemporary

Jhaveri Contemporary is a Mumbai-based contemporary art gallery that was launched in 2010 and has showcased artists of great historical significance, such as the Indian sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee (1949 – 2015), as well as younger artists like Prem Sahib, a British artist of Indian and Polish descent.

Jhaveri Contemporary is at booth A03 at the fair this year, where they are presenting new, recent and older works by over 10 artists on its roster, including French-Sri Lankan photographer Vasantha Yogananthan. Yogananthan’s analogue photographs blur the line between documentary and fiction and draw inspiration from the epics of South Asia, such as the Ramayana.

5. Afrah Shafiq: Experimenter

Experimenter is a contemporary art gallery in Kolkata and Mumbai that presents an international selection of practices. Some of the acclaimed artists that the gallery has exhibited include Christopher Kulendran Thomas, an artist of Tamil descent with roots in Sri Lanka. There is also Samson Young, who hails from Hong Kong.

The Experimenter is at booth C01, where they are showing multimedia works by Goan artist Afrah Shafiq. Shafiq mines archives and libraries, blending folklore and fantasy to treat audiences to vivid speculative worlds.

6. Hiroshi Sugimoto: Galleria Continua

Galleria Continua is an international contemporary art gallery that launched in San Gimignano, Italy, in 1990. Since then, it has opened spaces across Beijing, Paris, Rome and beyond. The gallery promotes intercultural dialogue through the practices it exhibits, such as Jamaican sculptor Nari Ward, French-Algerian multidisciplinary artist Kader Attia and British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor.

Galleria Continua is showing an interdisciplinary selection of practices at booth E04, including the renowned Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. Sugimoto has achieved international acclaim for his stark black-and-white photographs that are filled with a sense of melancholy.

7. Arjun Das: Dhi Contemporary

Dhi Contemporary launched in 2023 as an extension of Dhi Artspace. Dhi Contemporary presents young interdisciplinary artists from India, acting as an incubator for their practices. Its roster of emerging talent includes visual artist Akhil Mohan, painter Leena Raj and sculptor Akshay Maiti.

Dhi Contemporary is at booth C07, with a solo exhibition of sculptor Arjun Das. Das hails from Jharkhand and has studied art in Kolkata. His work channels the experiences of Kolkata’s large migrant working class. While Das initially created his artworks out of wood, he has since expanded his material repertoire to include metal, stone, coal, and found objects such as roof tiles.

At IAF 2025, the interdisciplinary artist will be showing new works from his ongoing series Some Ruins are Extant. The works will highlight the histories of ruined urban structures through the materials used in their construction.

8. Claire Fontaine: Italian Embassy Cultural Centre

Claire Fontaine is an imagined artist, formed by the Italian-British artist duo Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill. The duo treat Fontaine as a real, living person to whom they are assistants.

The Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, New Delhi, which spreads awareness of Italian culture through various art shows and cultural events, is presenting Fontaine’s series Foreigners Everywhere / Stranieri Ovunque (2004 – 2024) as an outdoor project outside the auditorium at IAF 2025. Foreigners Everywhere is a unique work composed entirely of neon-lit signs in multiple languages from across the world. The text on the signs is open to interpretation and may change meaning depending on the context in which they are placed, mirroring the simultaneously displaced and adaptive nature of people who are living in lands far from their birthplaces.

Foreigners Everywhere was also the theme of the Venice Biennale 2024.

9. Ngozi-Omeje Ezema: kó

kó is a Nigerian art gallery that opened in 2020 to promote modern art and contemporary art from across Africa with a Nigeria-first focus. The gallery presents artists working across mediums and styles, such as the Nigerian abstract artist Jerry Buhari and Italian-Nigerian artist Diana Ejaita, a visual and textile artist.

kó is at booth A05 and is showing works by a selection of African artists working across painting, drawing and textile art, including Ngozi-Omeje Ezema. Ezema is a Nigerian ceramic artist who creates installation art based on her personal experiences as a woman and her relationship with her family.

10. Sameen Agha: Indigo+Madder

Indigo+Madder is a gallery in London that was founded in 2019. It presents emerging local and international artists to generate cross-cultural discourse. Their roster of artists includes Pakistani-Sindhi painter and sculptor Noorain Inam and multidisciplinary British-Indian artist Amba Sayal-Bennet.

The gallery is showing works by various artists at booth F02, including Pakistani interdisciplinary artist Sameen Agha. Agha’s art explores themes of home and their intersections with gender. Agha often transforms materials into the form of objects that they are not typically associated with, such as in the case of Grace (2024), where marble takes on the appearance of lace.

11. Mithu Sen: Chemould Prescott Road

Originally founded in 1963 as Gallery Chemould at Jehangir Gallery in Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda, the gallery relocated to a larger space in the Fort area’s Prescott Road in 2007. Chemould has had a close focus on contemporary art since 1988, exhibiting compelling mid-career and senior practices. Some of the prominent names on its roster include interdisciplinary artists Vivan Sundaram (1943 – 2023) and Reena Saini Kallat.

Chemould Prescott Road is at Booth B02, where it is presenting a group show, including works by conceptual artist and poet Mithu Sen. Sen’s art confronts taboos around the human body and sexuality and integrates a wide range of materials to viscerally clash the erotic and the grotesque.

12. Kingsley Gunatilake: PRSFG

Paradise Road Saskia Fernando Gallery (PRSFG) is a contemporary art gallery in Sri Lanka that is committed to increasing the reach of work produced by artists from the island nation. PRSFG was founded in 2009, and in addition to art exhibitions within and outside the country, the gallery also hosts conversations titled #SupportLocalArt: The Talk Series to stimulate discussion around Sri Lankan art. It represents artists such as painter and visual artists Gayan Prageeth and Firi Rahman.

PRSFG is at booth D02, where it is showing several Sri Lankan artists, including Kingsley Gunatilake, who is a painter, installation artist and book artist. Gunatilake explores human emotion through his works and takes inspiration from traditional Chinese and Japanese ink painting work.

This is our selection from the massive number of booths at this year’s instalment of the art fair. We hope it helps you navigate the exciting offering of art, culture, and people that the India Art Fair has once again brought to Delhi.

India Art Fair 2025 brings an exciting programme of exhibitions, talks and public programming to New Delhi, introducing audiences to a wide range of artists and practices. Follow STIR's insightful coverage of the fair here.

‘India Art Fair’ 2025 is on from February 6 – 9, 2025, at NSIC Exhibition Grounds in Okhla, New Delhi.