Balaji Ponna

Born in 1980, is a Baroda-based contemporary artist known for his rigorous engagement with drawing, printmaking, and painting. Trained in Graphics, he holds a BFA from Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, and an MFA from Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan an education that deeply informs his layered visual language and conceptual depth. Ponna’s practice navigates themes of perception, memory, everyday absurdities, and quiet psychological states, often balancing the poetic with the political. His works are marked by a restrained palette, careful mark making, and a contemplative rhythm that invites slow looking. He has held several notable solo exhibitions in India and internationally, including Flying, Falling and Catching (SJ Art Gallery, South Korea, 2025), When Nothing Goes Right, Go Left (Art Centrix Space, New Delhi, 2020), and The Things I Say (Studio La Città, Verona, Italy, 2010). His work has been widely exhibited at major institutions, galleries, and art fairs such as India Art Fair, Art Basel, Arte Fiera Bologna, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, CIMA, Kalakriti, and galleries across India, Europe, the USA, and South Korea. A recipient of several scholarships and awards, including the HRD National Scholarship for Young Artists, Ponna has also participated in international residencies and national printmaking camps. He lives and works in Baroda, continuing to explore the fragile space between seeing and understanding.

He lives and works in Vadodara.