Payal Agarwal

"Multiple contradictory states held in permanent tension. Never resolved. Only performed or suppressed."

I'm a contemporary figurative painter working in large-scale acrylics. My work investigates psychological fragmentation, performativity, and urban isolation through baroque drama and expressionist intensity. I paint in layers: four to six translucent applications that mirror how we actually exist. Multiple contradictory states held in permanent tension. Never resolved. Only performed or suppressed.

The work holds multiple registers within a single subject: baroque elegance, expressionist dissolution, cosmic isolation. The same human, held in tension between performance and the world that erodes it. Sometimes performing elegance while surrounded by chaos. Other times dissolving entirely when defenses fail.

The Investigation

I'm interested in the human condition without protective mythology. The masks we perform so thoroughly we forget which one is real. The corruption woven into beauty from the beginning. The serpent already there, not invading Eden. The particular isolation of urban density where millions of people create maximum distance rather than connection.

Figures appear in baroque staging surrounded by demonic shadows. But the demons aren't attacking. They're what we're continuous with when performance drops. The elegant red gown functions as costume. The staged lighting makes the horror more disturbing, not less.

Other paintings show faces fragmenting into planes of color. Wide eyes. Manic grins stretched beyond capacity. This is what we look like when the performed self collapses. Reduced to pure exposed need in a world structured around distance.

The cityscape paintings depict stripped figures gazing at yellow-lit windows and distant towers. The isolation isn't created by absence. It's created by density that refuses connection. Surrounded by millions. Nobody is ours.

Method & scale

I work in acrylic on canvas, between 24 × 30 inches and 48 × 60 inches. Each painting is built through four to six translucent layers, applied slowly. Each layer shifts what came before. The painting only reveals itself fully near the end, and that accumulation is part of what the work is about.

I work large because scale changes the relationship between the painting and the person standing before it. You cannot keep a comfortable distance. The work asks for proximity, and proximity demands something from the viewer.

Background

I hold a Master of Design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Delhi (2013–2015). I ranked first nationally on the NIFT entrance examination. My training was in design, but my practice moved toward investigating psychological states that design typically obscures or beautifies.

I live and work in Madison, Wisconsin. In March 2026, The Gravity of Touch received a juried honorable award of $200 from Arts for Vets, Grand Forks, ND, where it was selected as the lead work in the Era Now-organized She Holds These Truths International Women’s Day exhibition. The painting also received Special Merit in Light Space & Time’s 16th Annual Figurative Exhibition (455 entries, 24 countries) and Honorable Mention (Traditional) in Fusion Art’s Artist’s Choice 2026 (351 international entries). Both paintings were invited back to Arts for Vets as Featured Artist through June 2026. My work placed Rank #17 in Gallerium’s Femina 2026, Rank #12 in Dynamix 2026, and Rank #31 in Spectrum 2026.