Chhering Negi

About Chhering Negi

Chhering Negi is from Kinnaur, a small and picturesque district in Himachal Pradesh. She completed her MFA from Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, in 2012, and her BFA from the Government College of Art, Chandigarh, in 2010. She has participated in many exhibitions across India and abroad. She received a National Award in 2017 and an AIFACS award in 2016. She held a Junior Fellowship from CCRT (2017-19), a Lalit Kala grant scholarship in 2014, and a National scholarship from the HRD ministry (2011-13). She has participated in many workshops and residencies. She lives and works in New Delhi.

Chhering Negi's work presents many windows onto many different people. It acknowledges the unique personality of each person depicted, while also speaking to a common thread of humanity. Each peek reveals a face, further defined by the elements around it. Cacti and flowers depict the duality and struggle of living, leading to an idea of balance. Each individual has their own circumstances and struggles, but in combating them, arrives at their own solution and builds their own ecosystem. Each composition captures the essence of the person represented, becoming a piece of storytelling — a reminder that the ordinary holds the nuances of the extraordinary effort it takes to survive in this vast world. The constant desire to attain balance, and the uniqueness of each individual's struggle regardless of where they are placed, are the governing themes of this work: the spirit to survive and to give life meaning and expression. It is an attempt to reveal what has been hidden, and what forms a person's views, personality and being — to understand and celebrate the uniqueness of each narrative composed here. It also shows the many different moods reflected in each human face, an acknowledgment of the spirit of being human, of surviving against the odds, and of the joys life has to offer.