24 June,2026 10:43 AM IST | Mumbai | Shriram Iyengar
Kisi Shayar Ki Ghazal, 2026
Commuters rush past us when we depart from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, as we try to stay dry. The first monsoon showers have added a shade of refreshing green to Fort's colonial streets. We sidestep the traffic, and head up the spiral wooden staircases of Kitab Mahal with bannisters older than this writer to enter the newest art space in the city, Gallery Maxima.
A view of the gallery space
Gallerist Sunaina Rajan is among the new guards of the city's art world. Growing up in Malabar Hill, art was a personal choice. "I started drawing and painting when I was four or five years old, and knew I would do something in this space," she admits. It led her to The Art Institute of Chicago, and her first tryst with galleries at the Lévy Gorvy Dayan in New York. Back in India, she co-founded Chemould CoLab with Atyan Jungalwala, and worked at Nature Morte, that also affirmed her decision to platform young, contemporary artists.
Dil Mera, 2026
As we enter the venue on the second floor, the vast 1600 sq ft space that opens up to large 15 ft- high ceilings. Light streams in through large windows allowing the art space to breathe. The bright red doors and tiles make it different to another white cube space.
A Wedding I Never Went To, Mommy's Girl
Aesthetic, yes. But functional too, says Rajan. "As a gallerist you need to think of many things, such as wide doors to bring art works through, windows to allow natural light so that even if the displays are large, they do not feel suffocating. You need lifts to offer easy access," she lists. It took her over three months to reshape the space to suit her aesthetics. "The space also needs to be adaptive to different forms and mediums," she tells us, revealing that future exhibitions will highlight artists working in textile and ceramic mediums as well.
Dream Girls, 2026. Pics Courtesy/artist, Gallery Maxima
Plans are already in motion, with artists locked in till January 2028, we learn. The opening weekend will witness Maithili Chaturvedi's debut solo, Dream Girl. A series of 22 works on velvet, the series revisits Hindi cinema's iconic female archetypes. Celluloid stars from Meena Kumari and Madhubala, to Hema Malini and Rekha, all emerge as mysterious myths.
Sunaina Rajan
While she charts out the upcoming plans, from walkthroughs with the artist, to a film screening to capture the themes of Chaturvedi's feminist archetypes in cinema, things are beginning to get busy. "We hope that visitors will walk out with a new awareness that art can push boundaries. I hope to make it a place where you could experience new things that you hadn't before,"
she says.
We certainly hope to.
From June 27; 10.30 to 6.30 pm (Tuesday to Saturday)
At Gallery Maxima, second floor, Kitab Mahal, off DN Road, Fort.
Hindi cinema was always part of culture. My mother and I would sing to each other, speaking in song. In my graduate year, I had to create a project about my dream exhibition. I chose to visualise my paintings atop a typical Art Deco building in SoBo. So, this was almost perfect. The choice of velvet is everything. My artworks acquire an alluring tactile quality when placed in a gallery setting. The gaze of these women, [as] icons, and objects of the male gaze, are both inviting and elusive at once.
Maithili Chaturvedi
