Maitri 2.0, the showcase by Galerie Geek Art at Art Mumbai 2024, reflects the profound bond that unites us with one another and the shared world we inhabit. Rooted in ancient wisdom and contemporary sensibilities, Maitri 2.0 bridges historical insight with modern perspectives, offering a deep reflection on the enduring and ever-relevant concept of connection.

Reimagining Maitri for today’s complexities, the exhibition unfolds as an exploration that is both personal and expansive. Contradictions evolve into meaningful dialogues, while paradoxes spark new possibilities. Through the work of Shun Sudo, Kenji Yanobe, Tomiyuki Kaneko, Yusuke Asai, Mari Ito, Goma, and Yuka Numata from Japan, alongside Tarini Sethi and Sajid Wajid Shaikh from India, Maitri 2.0 crafts a mosaic of shared human experience, emphasizing the layered realities of our multifaceted lives from across cultures.

By showcasing these artists whose practices embody the evolving and intricate nature of existence, Maitri 2.0 invites viewers to reflect on their own connections—their Maitri—through visual expressions that resonate universally while remaining deeply personal. The exhibition envisions an interconnected world, uncovering truths across the diverse terrain of contemporary art.

GOMA
B. 1973 inTokyo, Japan

GOMA is a celebrated didgeridoo player and painter, renowned for blending tradition with contemporary artistry. In 1998, he became the first non-Indigenous winner of Australia’s Barunga Didgeridoo Competition. Returning to Tokyo, he founded the Jungle Rhythm Section, merging dance and world music with his didgeridoo innovations.

A near-fatal car accident in 2009 left GOMA with traumatic brain injury and anterograde amnesia, yet it sparked an unexpected passion for painting. Diagnosed with acquired Savant Syndrome in 2018, his intricate dot paintings reflect vivid landscapes he visualized during comas, capturing subconscious realities.

Despite challenges, GOMA resumed his music career in 2011, gaining acclaim with the award-winning film Flashback Memories 3D. His journey, featured on Japanese TV, highlights resilience and creativity. Today, GOMA inspires global audiences as a musician, painter, and lecturer, embodying the transformative power of art in navigating adversity.

Kenji Yanobe
B.1965 in Osaka, and currently based in Kyoto, Japan

Kenji Yanobe is a contemporary artist known for exploring technology, society, and the human condition, often addressing nuclear energy and the aftermath of war. His art blends playful imagery with serious themes, incorporating elements of science fiction, manga, and pop culture to create surreal, thought-provoking pieces. Yanobe’s work, often featuring robotic or mechanized elements, reflects his anxieties about technology’s impact on the future.

His iconic sculpture, Sun Child, a child in a radiation suit holding a glowing sun, symbolizes the legacy of nuclear energy. Another prominent theme in his recent works is the ‘Ship’s Cat,’ a figure representing hope for future space travelers. Inspired by the historical role of cats during the Age of Exploration, Yanobe has created various sculptures of this cat, which have been exhibited globally. Yanobe continues to use his art as a catalyst for social change and reflection on humanity’s challenges.

Mari Ito
B. 1980 inTokyo, Japan and currently based in Barcelona, Spain

Mari Ito is a contemporary artist specializing in Nihonga, Japanese-style painting. After moving to Barcelona in 2006, she expanded her practice to include 2-D and sculptural works, blending traditional techniques with a unique, bold aesthetic. Her art draws from childhood experiences and explores animism, desire, and the primal aspects of human nature, often featuring flowers with faces to convey humor and emotion.

Ito’s work has been exhibited internationally in cities like Barcelona, Basel, Istanbul, and New York. Notable exhibitions include Gaudi’s Casa Vicenç in Barcelona and the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid. She has also participated in major art fairs in Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Miami, and Tokyo, and was a featured artist at ARCO Madrid in 2023. Her collaborations with brands such as Lilien Berg, Bershka, and Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi showcase her versatility in blending art with contemporary culture.

Sajid Wajid Shaikh
B.1989 in Mumbai, India

Sajid Wajid Shaikh is a multidisciplinary artist whose creative process merges engineering principles with organic intuition. His work spans various themes and mediums, with drawing at its core, reflecting sensory and cathartic responses to his surroundings. Influenced by German and Abstract Expressionism, his abstract and often grotesque faces embrace spontaneity and imagination. His sketchbooks serve as sculptural narratives, inviting viewers to interpret the unfolding story.

Recently, Sajid’s practice has become conceptually driven, inspired by artists like Sol LeWitt and Duchamp. He explores perception by placing everyday objects in contexts that strip them of their functionality, elevating them beyond their conventional uses. This leads him to “untitled” works that highlight absurdity and randomness.

Sajid’s narrative-driven works expand into film, merging sculpture, sound, photography, and drawing into a multi-narrative experience. His project Pie-Pie examines the rise of post-internet troll culture, exploring the impact of social media and online behaviors through digital portraits and pixelated aesthetics.

Tarini Sethi
B.1989 in New Delhi, India

Tarini Sethi is a contemporary artist whose practice delves into themes of intimacy, sexuality, and mythology. Drawing inspiration from folklore and traditional Indian art forms like Kalighat, Miniature painting, Kavad, and Tholu Bommalata, Sethi constructs dreamlike worlds through a multimedia approach, including painting, drawing, and metal sculpture. Her works have been featured in Architectural Digest India and showcased at events like the Mumbai Urban Arts Festival.

Sethi’s art navigates complex realities, addressing mental health, political skepticism, and environmental concerns. Her subjects—hybrid beings that blur the lines between human and animal—inhabit intricate, labyrinthine spaces. These figures explore emotions and interactions, challenging societal norms around gender, beauty, and identity.

As an Indian woman confronting issues of scrutiny and sexual oppression, Sethi’s work centers on bodies as vessels for agency and liberation. Her creations envision a utopian space where traditional boundaries dissolve, inviting freedom and transformation.

Yuka Numata
B. 1992 in Chiba, Japan, and currently based in Tokyo and Chiba.

Yuka Numata is an artist who bridges the digital and physical worlds. A graduate of Tokyo University of the Arts in 2022, with studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2019–2020), Numata’s work explores the interplay between two-dimensional and three-dimensional spaces.

Using software like Photoshop, she creates intentional digital glitches and reconstructs them in the physical world with pixel-perfect precision, arranging plastic beads to mimic the appearance of digital artifacts. Her installations and semi-3D works challenge perceptions of reality and the digital, reflecting on the divergence and overlap between these realms.

Through her art, Numata examines the imperfections and misalignments in digital imagery, questioning the boundaries of the tangible and virtual. Her thought-provoking works invite viewers to imagine a future shaped by the fluid intersections of reality and digital existence.

Tomiyuki Kaneko
B.1978 in Saitama, Japan, and currently based in Yamagata, Japan

Tomiyuki Kaneko is a distinctive voice in contemporary nihonga (Japanese painting). From childhood, he was fascinated by local deities, yokai (supernatural spirits), and invisible beings in nature, driving his desire to express the spiritual world through nihonga. His works are unique within the field, as he delves into themes rarely explored by other nihonga artists, including yokai, specters, demons, and deities, influenced by both Japanese folklore and Buddhist and Hindu theology.

Living and working in Yamagata, Kaneko’s art captures these spiritual entities with bold compositions that reflect his ongoing exploration of the unseen world. Notable exhibitions include Fed-up Tiger (2021) and Raging Gods (2017) at Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo, as well as Forest of Poetic Sentiments: Narrated Space (2017) at KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre.

Shun Sudo
B. 1977 in Tokyo, Japanand currently based in Tokyo & New York

Shun Sudo is a contemporary artist based in Tokyo, known for his diverse works in painting, sculpture, and drawing. Raised in Tokyo, Sudo was influenced by both traditional Japanese culture and the city’s evolving street culture. His art explores themes of connection, peace, and love, alongside the relationship between art and movement. After moving to the U.S. in his 20s, Sudo taught himself art techniques while traveling the world.

Sudo’s practice blends elements from Japanese and American pop and street cultures—such as skateboarding, graffiti, manga, and anime—alongside traditional Japanese painting and Sumi-e (ink painting). This fusion creates a harmonious yet heterogeneous aesthetic, breaking the conventional boundaries between “high” and “low” art. While his paintings draw from Pop Art, they also carry a critical perspective on social and political issues, reflecting Sudo’s unique viewpoint on contemporary life.