Bad Actors

We are delighted to present Bad Actors, the second solo exhibition at the gallery by artist Sangram Majumdar.

“There are some paintings you experience passively, simply absorbing what you see, like reading and processing a complete sentence. And there are some that require a more active engagement, a participatory approach. The paintings gathered together under the heading Bad Actors fall into this second category. They suggest situations, or the rough outlines of certain characters. Often composed of blocks of colour, animate forms and half-present sketches, the paintings offer us a flash of possibilities — a peek into alternate realities.  And their instability – their evidently collaged, not absolutely coherent nature – is precisely what gives them life.

At times they appear as some form of human-animal hybrid, surrounded by something like a frame or border. A frame that’s fragmented, dislocated, waiting to be assembled — from which the subject of the painting can step out into the real world. Or perhaps giving the subject a sense of shape and purpose, like in European portraiture or Indian miniature painting of the 1800s.

Sangram’s is a fluid, animate language, with its own rhythms and flows. Forms turn into shapes, shapes turn into a gathering of marks, and marks coalesce back into forms. His current works’ fragmentary nature is a reflection of the world which is increasingly revealed to be full of contingencies rather than necessities. With truths that change, with friends who can become enemies. In reality we all live in a fluid and mutable world, and perhaps Majumdar’s paintings give us an example of how and why we might come to terms with that.”

(Excerpted from the essay by Mark Rappolt that accompanies the exhibition).

Born 1976 in Kolkata, India, Sangram studied painting at Indiana University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Since 2003, he has held numerous solo exhibitions in the USA. Recent participations include Explosion Robinson, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, NY, NY (2025); As Told by its Makers: Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Art, curated by Diane Thompson, National Academy of Design, NY, NY (2024); and The Glass Bead Game, Mamoth, London (2022).

The artist lives and works in Seattle, WA, where he is also an Associate Professor in the School of Art + Art History + Design at the University of Washington.