Parag Sonarghare, born in 1987 in Nagpur, India, exposes the human condition. In his paintings, the skin becomes a cartography of life, of its models. Each wrinkle of these faces reveals the inner landscapes of the painted subjects.

His hyperrealism is political, it excludes all cosmetics, all that the consumer society has invented to erase what we are, to erase all traces of suffering, aging, alteration, it opposes any trace of denaturation.

His hyperrealism, like that of the American hyperrealist sculptor Duane Hanson (1925-1996), is similar to a social realism and gives us to see, to stare at, the excluded of the American dream for one, the Indian dream for the other.

At first, we think of photography. Then we discover that it is paint, acrylic on canvas.
Technical prowess challenges us and holds our attention. The spectacular enlargement and tight framing of Parag's portraits leave no escape to our gaze, our imagination. We are then forced to read the painted subjects, to read the lines of their body, their face, their skin, all the imperfections that are also ours and that deliver their own message, their own experience.

The fixed gaze of the faces, lost in the oblivion of oneself, as when one stands at a distance from any thought, any reflection, annihilates any dialogue, any speculation on what the subject would be thinking about, and sends back, here too, to the sole reading of these faces, these bodies, these cartographies of the soul.

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Parag Sonarghare has used the body in both performance and painting. Performances include Being the Other, KHOJ International Artist Association, Delhi, AHAMBRAHMASMI at various venues including Delhi, Nagpur and Baroda. He has participated in various group exhibitions including Rethinking the Regional, Curated by Manisha Patil, NGMA, Mumbai, Indian Contemporary Art, space 1858, Chicago, USA, PARADIGMS & PERSPECTIVE, Indigo blue art gallery, Singapore, among others. In 2016, Parag was part of two group exhibitions titled TIME and Portraits of the Self, at Gallery Maskara, Mumbai, India. He was also part of the Asian Contemporary Art Exhibition, Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Korea and Young Subcontinent, Serendipity Arts, Goa. In 2018, he was part of the Pepper House residency in collaboration with the Kochi Muziris Biennale. In 2019, he was in residence at Kunstdepot Foundation, Goschenen, Switzerland.

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Collections privées : Antoine de Galbert, Chicago, Suisse, Corée.