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![Vertical Landscape, 1987]()
Vertical Landscape, 1987
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![Beam, 2019]()
Beam, 2019
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![Jadelight Triptych part 1, 2025]()
Jadelight Triptych part 1, 2025
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![Jadelight Triptych part 2, 2025]()
Jadelight Triptych part 2, 2025
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![Jadelight Triptych part 3, 2025]()
Jadelight Triptych part 3, 2025
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![This Way III, 1992]()
This Way III, 1992
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![This Way II, 1992]()
This Way II, 1992
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![Sun, 1980]()
Sun, 1980
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![Black Moon, 1980]()
Black Moon, 1980
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![Maganese Field, 1987- 2025]()
Maganese Field, 1987- 2025
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![Riddle II]()
Riddle II
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![Riddle I, 1984]()
Riddle I, 1984
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![Rain Catcher, 1984]()
Rain Catcher, 1984
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![Flight, 1987]()
Flight, 1987
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![Calling card, 1984]()
Calling card, 1984
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![Birthmark , 1984]()
Birthmark , 1984
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![Inside Outside, 1984]()
Inside Outside, 1984
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![Fissure, 1984]()
Fissure, 1984
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![flying fossil, 1986]()
flying fossil, 1986
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![Flying fossil II, 1986]()
Flying fossil II, 1986
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![Before The Rain, 1986]()
Before The Rain, 1986
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![When The Sun Rose Again, 1986]()
When The Sun Rose Again, 1986
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![Pool, 1985]()
Pool, 1985
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![Cave, 1989]()
Cave, 1989
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![loop, 1990]()
loop, 1990
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![Cycles of the grassbird, 2024]()
Cycles of the grassbird, 2024
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![Spring, 2020]()
Spring, 2020
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![Fern, 2019]()
Fern, 2019
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![Green Rain, 2020]()
Green Rain, 2020
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![Blue moon, 2019]()
Blue moon, 2019
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![Ladder, 1987]()
Ladder, 1987
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![Images Of Autumn, 1987]()
Images Of Autumn, 1987
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![Fall Moon, 1984]()
Fall Moon, 1984
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![Glimpse, 2019]()
Glimpse, 2019
Ranjana Thapalyal is a multi-disciplinary artist, writer and educator based in Scotland, UK. Over a long career in India and the UK, her visual art practice has taken several distinct forms responding to environment and the changing contexts of her life. These include ceramics, painting, mixed media ephemeral assemblages, text and collaborative performance. A constant thread has been an intuitive leaning towards art practice as philosophical reflection on the nature of time, and the metaphysical self.
Growing up in India, the U.S. and Switzerland, she studied ceramics at the institution now known as the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, England. Shortly after, she moved to Delhi and had her first solo exhibition at the Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi 1984 which was soon followed by solo shows at Art Heritage 1985, Cymroza Gallery, Mumbai 1986, and Sakshi Gallery, Chennai 1987. Thapalyal’s work was selected for the India section of the VIth Triennale India in 1987, and the IInd Biennial of Contemporary Indian Art, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal 1988. She had several works in The Sculpted Image- a Panorama of Contemporary Indian Sculpture Nehru Centre, Mumbai 1987, and Indian Women Sculptors at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, also in 1987. In later years, having moved back to the UK, she was invited to send a work for the 1997 mail art exhibition A Gift for India, presented by the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust to mark 50 years of Indian independence.
On returning to the UK, Thapalyal turned instinctively to painting as a way of recalling the light and saturated colours that she had come to take for granted in India. In the 1990s her paintings were critically noted in several Whitechapel Opens held at the Whitechapel Gallery, London and. In 2000 she brought a new body of work to Delhi, Talacchanda- the Rhythm of the Plan, shown at the British Council Gallery, subsequently touring it to Out of the Blue, Edinburgh 2001 and Tramway, Glasgow 2002. In 2005 she was artist-in residence at the Burrell Collection, Glasgow working with the Iznik ceramics collection. This culminated in The Potter's Mirror, an exhibition within the Burrell, that included her own photography and sculpture alongside the creations of workshop participants from across the city, contextualised by several pieces from the museum archives.
Currently the third iteration of Thapalyal ’s text and collaborative performance series Sound-Seed is in progress. A reflection on the nature of language and sound, the work brings together many aspects of her creative output. Earlier versions were commissioned for Cooper Gallery, Dundee and Platform, Glasgow.
Thapalyal’s recent critical writing can be found in Third Text Online, Art Monthly, ELIA 15, MAP, Nowness Asia, Mrin and in her book, Education as Mutual Translation, a Yoruba and Ancient Indian Interface for Pedagogy in the Creative Arts (Brill 2018).
