Born in 1986, Shailesh B.R. received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, specialising in painting, from the Chamarajendran Academy of Visual Arts, Mysore, and has a post-graduate diploma from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda. His practice revolves around the nature of processes – of philosophical thought, art and rituals, expressed through a visual vocabulary that makes the viewer reimagine the purpose and function of routine objects. His works are playful reconfigurations of philosophical thought through mechanical means. His drawings (which unapologetically reject any grammatical precision) question the staunch formalism associated with art and use the premise of honest artistic wonder instead to explore how errors can be made in how he sees, perceives and defends his ideas.
Shailesh’s solo exhibition Tarka was held at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi (2017). Shailesh has participated in various group shows, including the CIMA Art Award Show, Kolkata (2014); Drawing 2014: Seven Decades of Indian Drawing, Gallery Espace, Delhi (2014); Student’s Biennale, Kochi 2014, a parallel event to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014; Remembering the Present, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi (2018); and, Narrow Road to the Interior, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi (2019).He has been part of the Khoj Peers 2015 as an artist-in-residence and was invited for the Khoj Peers Share in October 2013. In 2014, Shailesh has received the Inlaks Fine Arts Award and was also invited to Sandarbh Art Residency, Partapur, as an artist-in-residence. In 2016, he was awarded the FICA Emerging Artist Award and travelled to Switzerland for a residency. In March 2017, he was invited for the Khoj residency in Goa. Shailesh’s solo exhibition The Last Brahmin was held at the prestigious Villa Arson in Nice, France from 14 February to 13 May, 2020.
The artist lives and works in New Delhi, India.