Dubai, UAE — Until 10 November 2026
At Leila Heller Gallery in Dubai, Indian contemporary artist Manish Nai invites viewers to reconsider the materials that surround them. In In Search of Material within Material, a solo exhibition bringing together works created between 2021 and 2026, discarded objects, industrial surfaces and familiar everyday materials become the starting point for an exploration of form, memory and transformation.
Born in Gujarat in 1980 and based in Mumbai, Nai has developed a distinctive artistic language through his engagement with humble materials. Jute, newspapers, used clothing, cardboard, corrugated metal, aluminium and stainless-steel mesh recur throughout his practice, carrying traces of their previous functions even as they assume entirely new identities. Rather than treating these materials as neutral substances, Nai approaches each one as something with its own history, structure and possibilities.
His relationship with material began long before his artistic career. Growing up in a family involved in textile trading, he encountered jute cloth through the goods that arrived wrapped and packed in it. In Mumbai, he also observed the material covering building façades at construction sites. These early experiences connected personal memory with the changing urban landscape, eventually leading him to incorporate jute into his paintings and, later, his sculptural work.
What began with textiles gradually expanded into a broader investigation of the ordinary. Nai turned his attention to materials that are frequently overlooked, reused or discarded, exploring what might emerge when their original purposes are reconsidered. Through cutting, folding, compression, layering and repetition, he transforms familiar surfaces into intricate compositions that move between painting and sculpture. The material changes, but its previous life is rarely erased.
This relationship between preservation and transformation lies at the heart of In Search of Material within Material. The exhibition brings together works made with corrugated aluminium, painted aluminium mounted on stainless-steel mesh, found and rusted metal, used clothing, plastic netting and teak wood, alongside watercolours on paper. Each material offers a different set of possibilities, allowing Nai to explore the relationship between surface, texture, volume and structure.
In his aluminium works, industrial surfaces and repeated patterns create compositions that occupy an intriguing space between two and three dimensions. Mounted on stainless-steel mesh, painted metal takes on a new visual presence, encouraging viewers to look beyond its familiar industrial identity. Elsewhere, old and rusted corrugated sheets retain their weathered marks, allowing time and previous use to remain visible within the finished work. Their imperfections become part of the composition rather than something to conceal.
Other works extend this investigation through used clothing, teak wood and acrylic paint on plastic netting. These materials, associated with domestic life, construction or everyday utility, are reorganised into forms that challenge the distinction between the functional object and the artwork. Alongside them, watercolours on paper introduce a more fluid, pictorial dimension, creating a dialogue between the physical density of the sculptures and the relative lightness of the painted surface.
Nai's process is rooted in observation and experimentation. Instead of beginning with a predetermined image, he allows the material itself to guide the work. Its resistance, limitations and structural qualities become part of the artistic process. Repetition, often labour-intensive, provides the time and space to discover possibilities that might otherwise remain hidden. The resulting works are not simply exercises in recycling; they are investigations into how material can generate meaning through its transformation.
This approach also connects Nai's practice to the environment that has shaped it. Mumbai, with its density, construction sites, changing surfaces and continuous circulation of materials, has informed the way he observes and creates. His work reflects an awareness of the urban world without attempting to reproduce it literally. Instead, fragments of that environment are absorbed into an abstract visual language in which accumulation, repetition and texture become central elements.
Over the years, Nai has established an international presence, exhibiting at institutions including the Devi Art Foundation and the Bhau Daji Lad Museum in India, Para Site in Hong Kong, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore, Het Noordbrabants Museum in the Netherlands and the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago. He has also participated in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2014 and 2018, and the Shanghai Biennale in 2012. His recognition includes the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award for 2004–2005 and the 2014 ROSL Visual Arts Scholarship.
Presented in Dubai, In Search of Material within Material brings this sustained artistic enquiry into a regional cultural setting, offering audiences an opportunity to encounter a practice shaped by the relationship between material, memory and the everyday. The exhibition does not ask viewers to look away from ordinary objects in search of something extraordinary. Instead, it encourages them to look more closely at what is already there.
Ultimately, Nai's work rests on a deceptively simple question: what else can a material become without losing everything it has been? Through patient processes and an attentiveness to overlooked surfaces, he reveals that transformation does not always require erasure. Sometimes, a material's history is precisely what makes its next form possible.
