"Divine Texture of Culture" An Exhibition of Sculptures by Kiran Shigvan, Karuna Shigvan

Kiran Shigvan:

Kiran Shigvan’s sculptures operate at the intersection of anatomical precision, restraint, and a sensitivity to material behaviour. Working primarily in fibreglass and bronze, he demonstrates a disciplined command over form, allowing the human figure to emerge not as show but as a site of quiet psychological intensity. His sculptures often appear paused mid-thought or mid-breath, suggesting an inward turn rather than an outward performance. There is no excess here, gesture is economised, surfaces are controlled, and the body is treated as a vessel of lived experience rather than an object of idealisation.

What is striking is Shigvan’s ability to let material speak without overpowering the subject. Fibreglass lends his figures a contemporary immediacy, while bronze anchors them within a longer sculptural lineage, creating a productive tension between the present and the classical. His figures carry the weight of ordinary vulnerability; fatigue, contemplation, resilience, rendered with dignity and restraint. In an age of overstated narratives, Kiran Shigvan’s sculptures insist on slowness, silence, and deep looking.

Karuna Shigvan:

Karuna Shigvan’s sculptural language is lyrical, devotional, and inward-looking, shaped by an enduring engagement with feminine presence, musicality, and mythic memory. Her figures, often women, musicians, or dual-faced visages are not portraits in the literal sense but embodiments of states of being: listening, offering, waiting, remembering. Working with bronze and fibreglass, she builds surfaces through intricate texturing that recalls textiles, jewellery, and ritual ornamentation, allowing the skin of the sculpture to carry cultural memory and form.

There is a musical rhythm in her work; the flute, the peacock feather, the inward-tilted head, suggesting sound translated into stillness. Unlike heroic monumentality, Shigvan’s sculptures favour intimacy and grace; their elongated proportions and softened gestures evoke bhakti traditions and classical Indian aesthetics without slipping into pastiche. The duality of faces hints at layered identities: inner and outer selves, the temporal and the eternal. Her work draws the viewer into a quiet, sustained communion. In a contemporary moment obsessed with speed, Karuna Shigvan’s sculptures reclaim slowness as a form of reverence.

Sushma Sabnis 

Mumbai

From: 10th to 16th February 2026

"Divine Texture of Culture"

An Exhibition of Sculptures by Kiran Shigvan, Karuna Shigvan

VENUE: Nehru Center Art Gallery,

AC Gallery, Dr. Annie Besant Road, Worli, Mumbai 400018

Timing: 11am to 7pm

Contact: +91 77108 68631 / +91 77759 87011