Made To Appear is a two person exhibition featuring artists Viraj Khanna and Brian Robertson, whose works merge traditional textile techniques, contemporary imagery and cultural commentary to examine emotionally residual forms and the performative nature of today’s social media-driven world. Pushing beyond the rules of craft and fine arts, the exhibition presents mixed media, threaded works that challenge perceptions of materiality, identity, and community by offering a timely exploration of modern life through texture and form.
Made To Appear presents new series of artworks created specifically for this occasion, marking the gallery’s first collaboration with both artists. The show explores themes of identity, human connection, and authenticity within an increasingly performative social landscape, inviting the viewer to examine the way their self-expression is shaped and curated when contributing to social media or when in pursuit of acceptance, vanity, endorsement, or other personal motivations.
Through their works, Khanna and Robertson highlight the tension between genuine experience and a carefully constructed, often deceptive, yet visually alluring narrative most commonly presented in contemporary life. Viraj Khanna’s newest works capture the surface of privilege through colorful layers of embroidery and moves between spectacle and scrutiny by revealing existing tensions surrounding class, consumption, and constructed but eager to please personas.
Khanna examines the cycles of online validation and the true worth of one’s experiences beyond the screen before repackaging for public consumption. Developed alongside artisans from West Bengal who have preserved this intricate embroidery practice across generations, the work uses a medium defined by intensive labor and rich ornamentation to pause and question modern ideals of success, desire, exclusivity and image-making. Khanna navigates these spaces as an active participant and a critical observer. By employing craft, humor, and irony, he dismantles polished social facades to reveal the complex cultural undercurrents beneath.