Sumit Sarkar is a visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice moves fluidly between painting, installation, and sculptural form finding the extraordinary lodged inside the ordinary,a folded sheet, a worn pillow, a stitched seam of cloth. His work reads the domestic object as a kind of quiet archive, carrying memory, ritual, and the sacred within the textures of everyday South Asian and Bengali life. This instinct for transformation extends beyond the canvas into his work as a paper mask designer, where the same attention to fold, surface, and concealment finds a second material language.
He currently serves as Associate Professor at the School of Visual Arts, World University of Design, Sonipat / Delhi NCR, where he teaches across the Foundation, BVA, and MVA programmes. It is in this role that his identity as an art educator takes shape most fully not as a separate calling from the studio, but as its natural extension, a place where material inquiry is handed forward. As a visual arts mentor, he carries that same patient, material-first thinking into his engagement with younger practitioners, treating mentorship as a studio practice in its own right. He holds an MA in Fine Arts (Painting) from Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan (2014–2016), and a BA in Painting from The Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata (2011–2014).
Over Ten years of active practice, Sumit has carried his work and Indian contemporary art more broadly onto international stages: Glasgow, Scotland, Busan- South Korea, The UNESCO and MEADOWS platforms in Italy, Art Expo- Thailand, Dubai, Beijing- China, and the Dhaka Bangladesh Biennale. He has represented Indian culture at the Beijing Biennale (2017), the Bangladesh Biennale (2016), and the South Korea Biennale (2020). His work has been featured in My Kolkata (an edition of The Telegraph), Indulge (Indian Express), red.art.media, Times of India Hyderabad Times, The Hindu, Art in Space, and Lifestyle Asia India.
Most recently, he travelled to Vietnam as an International Artist for the Harmony International Art Exhibition, conducting workshops there, and served as invited faculty at Van Lang University engaging with students and faculty as both artist and educator.
His achievements have been recognised with the 2nd Prize (Silver), Practitioner Category, at the Art Exchange Program in Thailand, the Kala Sakshi Memorial Trust Award, Delhi. The Bombay Art Society's Late Sanjay Haridas Jagdale Award for Best Entry, Mumbai. The Camel Art Foundation Award, Kolkata and a Ministry of Culture (NHRD) scholarship for young artists in the painting category. He is recognised internationally as a South Asian Emerging Artist represented by Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad ,India .
Through practice and pedagogy alike, Sumit continues to explore the space where material, memory, and mentorship meet carrying that inquiry from the studio into the classroom, and from Santiniketan to the world.