Where Art Has No Gatekeepers

What happens when an artist trained in Kolkata, refined in Dortmund, and seasoned in the galleries of Paris and Berlin lands in a city where an overwhelming majority of the population are immigrants? For Abhijit Pal, it wasn’t a clash of cultures, but a profound sense of liberation.

Within three years of arriving in Melbourne, Pal was exhibiting his first Australian solo in March 2026: Chhordi.

In this series, he literally stitches memories back to life, overlaying photographs of his uncle’s abandoned ancestral home in India with kantha embroidery and spiraling Bengali text. It is a deeply personal project that Pal believes could only have emerged in Melbourne. “Melbourne is wonderful,” he says. Where European art scenes are shaped by long histories and established tastes, Melbourne, he states, is radically open. Melbourne’s appreciation for indigenous and Aboriginal art feels woven into its mainstream fabric.

“There is no gatekeeping here,” Abhijit says, pointing to the Incognito Art Show as the symbol of the city’s spirit. The show, with its unique method of leveling the playing field by selling every piece anonymously for AUD $100, places novices and professionals on equal footing.

For an Indian artist, “making it” in Melbourne doesn’t require shedding one’s skin. Pal found that the more specific he became, the more the city responded. For Chhordi, he kept his Bengali text untranslated.

“I wanted to remain authentic,” he explains. “The language wasn’t a barrier.” If anything, it was the hook and the pull.

His embrace of the kantha stitch is driven by a similar instinct. While the technique carries cultural heritage, Pal’s confidence to elevate it into mainstream art was sparked by the institutional respect given to Aboriginal dot painting. Though kantha is traditionally viewed as “women’s craft” in Bengal, Pal cites his father as his primary influence, in a home where craft was never gendered.

“My father’s stitching is a thousand times better than mine,” he says, “but he doesn’t think he is an artist.”

Pal has spent over a decade teaching across continents. Yet, across contexts, one thing is constant: students surprise him. “I always learn from them,” he says. A workshop with children made him rethink his work once he realised he couldn’t replicate their innocence. “I had to change.”

That willingness to unlearn, to remain porous to influence, sits at the heart of Pal’s practice. Whether through thread, language, or pedagogy, his craft resists fixed meanings. An artist whose work transcends regional identity, he believes his work speaks to shared human experiences. 

“Art has a language,” he says. “Everyone can understand this.”