Born 1970, Bhubaneswar, India.
In his detailed mixed-media paintings, drawings, and sculptures, Jagannath Panda mixes mythology with reality, blending motifs from traditional Indian art with images from both Western and Indian contemporary culture. The natural and the manmade collide and coalesce both seamlessly and uncomfortably in his works. Panda illustrates the paradoxes inherent in India’s burgeoning development and prosperity, recontextualizing the life of the Delhiite within a metaphysical, almost transcendental framework.
Panda holds a BFA from BK College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar (1991), a MFA in Sculpture from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (1994), and an additional MFA in Sculpture from Royal College of Arts, London (2002). He was a visiting researcher at Fukuoka University of Education, Fukuoka, Japan, in 1997 as well as a recipient of the Lalit Kala Akademi Research Fellowship, Orissa State Lalit Kala Akademi Scholarship, and Junior Research Fellowship, Government of India. He has received several awards such as the Centre Prize, C.I.I.C London; All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society Award, New Delhi; Alice Boner Memorial Award; and the All India Drawing Award from Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi and Orissa State Lalit Kala Akademi. He has participated in the Khoj International Residency, Delhi, and International City des’Art, Paris.
Panda was commissioned by the Jio World Convention Centre in 2022. His works are also included in the collections of the Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai; GVK Mumbai International Airport; Mori Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan; Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi; the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Hindustan Times, New Delhi; and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi. Panda's forthcoming solo exhibition, 'Thresholds Of The Elsewhere,' opens September 2025 at Aicon Contemporary.
The artist lives and works in New Delhi.