Viraj Mithani (b. 1990) is an Indian artist whose multidisciplinary practice examines marginalised histories, cultural memory, and the construction of modernity through the intersection of mythology, consumerism, digitalisation, and contemporary visual culture. His work draws from diverse historical and cultural references, which he brings together through painting, printmaking, drawing, writing, and collage to construct layered, alternative narratives. Viraj Mithani’s practice is rooted in an interest in reclaiming marginalised and overlooked histories while imagining alternative forms of modernity. Drawing from mythology, ancient Indian painting traditions, consumer culture, digitalisation, and contemporary visual languages, he brings seemingly disparate references together to construct complex worlds within a single frame. His work considers how histories are inherited, transformed, fragmented, and reimagined, particularly from positions that exist outside dominant narratives of modernity.
Painting, printmaking, drawing, writing, and collage become tools for navigating these questions. Mithani works with motifs and iconographies drawn from Indian painting traditions, sometimes retaining their narrative sources and at other times moving deliberately away from them. Through this process of appropriation, fragmentation, layering, and translation, familiar images are recontextualised to produce what he describes as “alternative narratives.”
Mithani received an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Brown University in 2023, and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2015. He has exhibited widely in India and internationally, including at 1x1 Gallery, Dubai; Turley Gallery, New York; Aicon Gallery, New York; Rajiv Menon Contemporary, Los Angeles; the RISD Museum; Gelman Gallery; Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai; and the International Print Triennial in Krakow. His honours include the Forbes India 30 Under 30 (2022), Brown Arts Institute Grant, RISD SPUR Research Grant, and the Kirloskar Graduate Fellowship. His first book, Waking Up the Interiority, was published in 2026.
Viraj Mithnai lives and works in Mumbai, India.
