Exhibition view: Prabhakar Pachpute, Lone Runner’s Laboratory, Experimenter (17 July–17 October 2026). Courtesy Experimenter.
Experimenter presents the second iteration of Prabhakar Pachpute’s solo exhibition, Lone Runner’s Laboratory, at Experimenter Outpost within the Alipore Museum in Kolkata.
Woven through a dense interplay of metaphors and contemporary references, the exhibition marks a new chapter in the Pune-based artist’s evolving practice, offering simultaneously social and psychological readings of individual quest and systemic exploitation.
The presentation unfolds as an active space of introspection, confronting viewers with discomforting encounters, stark silence, and propositions of hope.
Emerging from a close reflection on the recurring characters that have populated his panoramic landscapes over the years, Pachpute’s responses are shaped by visits to various mines, agricultural and mining museums, farms, and barren terrains, alongside ongoing dialogues with workers and activists committed to the struggles of marginalized communities.
Equally significant is the influence of literary and intellectual thought, which, alongside his encounters with lived experience, helps shape the conceptual and emotional terrain of his practice.
For Lone Runner’s Laboratory, Pachpute brings together a body of morphed sculptures and paintings that delve into the unsettled energies buried within difficult social realities.
He examines the inner worlds of his long-drawn characters, exploring the persistent fire within them while capturing moments of internal turmoil, emotional collapse, and existential erosion.
Prabhakar Pachpute Museum Menageries 43 (Fractured body), 2025 Oil on paper 30 x 20 cm 11 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches Experimenter
Echoing the concerns of thinkers who have explored emotional landscapes shaped by vulnerability and constraint, Pachpute draws inspiration from George Orwell’s reflection on institutional duty in Shooting an Elephant (1936), as well as Franz Kafka’s Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis (1915), who becomes both the cavern he has carved for himself and the one shaped by his external environment.
In works such as Crawling through the Jungle, set within a forest inhabited by sloth bears, rabbits, elephants, foxes, and wild boars, the narrative unfolds like a fable where human and non-human realms converge.
The works evoke the complexities of everyday life, a multifaceted landscape of aspirations and fears, and the varied ways individuals seek escape or discover internal resilience.
Deeply intimate and solitary, Lone Runner’s Laboratory uncovers a churning tempest at the heart of Pachpute’s quest to navigate complex universal questions confronting contemporary society.
Born in the industry-dominated town of Chandrapur in central India, Pachpute’s artistic practice remains deeply tied to his family history, where three generations worked in local coal mines.
After studying sculpture at Indira Kala Sangeet Vishwavidyalaya in Khairagarh and earning his MFA from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, he established a practice that continuously interrogates the intersections of land, labor, and industrial expansion.
Frequently utilizing charcoal as a primary medium—a direct material link to his mining heritage—Pachpute is widely recognized for his immersive, site-specific mural installations, surrealist iconography, depersonalized worker figures, and ongoing investigations into environmental and agricultural displacement.
Prabhakar Pachpute Looking at shooting an elephant after Orwell, 2025 Acrylic paint and pencil on canvas 213.4 x 475 cm 84 1/8 x 187 1/8 inches Experimenter
