Abir Karmakar’s primary intention is confessional. He lures the viewer into a secluded world where attitudes of ero- tic desire are performed before our gaze. The domestic space or the nondescript hotel room becomes for a brief period of time a stolen habitation which reveals the per- forming desiring body. Let us briefly compare his paint- ings with the larger body of practice by male contemporary artists, which tends to move up and out from the private to the public domain, assuming a powerful masculinist view of cities, building sites, symbols of growth and the urban landscape in transition. Here the Indian artist appears to be grounded in responses to mediatic information, global economy, social discourse. In contrast, among his male confreres, Abir Karmakar appears to move in and down, into a psychological space, a miasma of sexual fantasy and personal expressivity. Locating himself as the subject of his painting within middle class domestic spaces, he works with tropes of realistic painting, mannerist portraiture and the soft porn style of tabloid pin ups.