Born in Khairagarh, Chhattisgarh in 1975, Amitesh Shrivastava obtained his BFA from Khairagarh University in 1997, and an MFA from Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda in 2000. Shrivastava mines his way through the experiential via paintings and ink drawings. He periodically breaks and remakes the brush strokes, color palettes, hybridities, and protagonists of his pictorial world to reflect the continuous restructuring of his worldview.
Having maintained close ties with his hometown in Chhattisgarh — the so-called ‘pre-modern’ — and its tribes, animals, trees, ‘crafts,’ urgencies, and deprivations, form as much a part of Shrivastava’s reality as the world of digital technology, virtual reality, and urban life. Neither overtly political, nor intensely nostalgic, he strives to stay clear of abstract categorization, text-fixation, and neo-liberal forms of resistance. His works blur the divides between agrarian and technological economies to portray universal notions of humanity, social hierarchy, and the crumbling of our mediatized consciousness in beautiful, kaleidoscopic ways through expressionistic brushstrokes.
Conker-brown, sand-brown, earth-red brown, greens and tans of various orders inspired by the local artistic traditions of Chhattisgarh come to grips with the palette of urban life: icing pink, Wedgewood blue, sulfur light yellow. Whites are dirty ostrich, dull ivory, and a soft-pink-blue, but never clean. Only the brushstrokes, hurried, prolific, and large are able to offer the clarity the pictures themselves withhold in their deliberate muddles.
Shrivastava has had three solo shows at Project 88 in 2022, 2020, and 2017 and has also executed a large-scale public commission at Space २४१ | 241 at the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial, Dandi, Gujarat. Most recently, the artist had a solo exhibition, The Sniffer, at Gratin, New York, 2023. Shrivastava’s works have been exhibited in several group shows including Stalkings and Other Stories curated by Prajna Desai at Project 88, Mumbai (2016), Other’s Other curated by Shreyas Karle at Gallery Art district XIII, New Delhi (2016), Len Den curated by Shreyas Karle and Hemali Bhuta at Mumbai Art Room (2015), Räume für Notizen (room for notes) curated by Gunter Vallaster, Wechselstrom gallery, Vienna (2014), among others.
The artist currently lives and works in Mumbai.