05/07/2026
We are so pleased to announce Arinjoy Sen's (b. 1996, Kolkata, India) participation in our upcoming show.
Sen's celebrated work,”Bengali Song” has been shown across international institutions and further collected. He will make his USA gallery debut in Shape of Attention at Aicon Contemporary.
His piece 'Tale of Manasa’ which features in the show, extends beyond myth into a meditation on migration and displacement, where the narrative of the serpent goddess becomes entangled with contemporary experiences of movement across geographies. He digitally draws the stories which are then printed on silk and kantha embroidered by SHE Kantha, a women’s led NGO focused towards the revival of kantha.Â
Figures, motifs, and gestures appear to emerge and recede, resisting linear narration and instead inviting a cyclical, attentive mode of viewing. In his work, attention moves between detail and totality, mirroring the way oral and visual traditions carry and transform stories over time.
His digitally driven drawings that take inspiration from Bengali scroll paintings, act as interventions into the genre of painting and push the boundaries of what it can comprise of.Â
Sen’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where it was acquired for the permanent collection (2024–25); the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2025); La Biennale di Venezia (2023); the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2023); the Royal Institute of British Architects, London (2024); and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2023), among others.Â
His work has been covered by the Guardian, the Observer, Dezeen, e-flux, and Wallpaper*, and his writing has appeared in the Architectural Review, the Funambulist, and the RIBA Journal.
Sen is based in London, United Kingdom.
Shape of Attention, curated by Manya Kochhar features 10 artists: Maithili Chaturvedi, Abhimanue Govindan, Chaturika Jayani, Shivangi Kalra, Smita M. Babu, Ashna Malik, Harsh Nambiar, Gayan Prageeth, Aditya Puthur, Arinjoy Sen.
Please join us for the opening reception on 14th May, 2026 at
Aicon Contemporary
35 Great Jones Street
New York, NY, 10012