NEW YORK, NY.- GR gallery announces “Made To Appear” 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. What the viewer encounters is not immediate or neutral, but constructed to produce a specific visual and emotional impression; on a perceptible level in fact the works resist instant recognition: embroidered surfaces initially register as paintings or digital images, revealing their textile nature only through closer observation. The title therefore reflects the tension between what appears to be seen and what is physically present, allowing the exhibition to operate in an intentionally ambiguous space between image and object, authenticity and construction. ‘Made To Appear’ will present new series of artworks created specifically for this occasion, marking the gallery’s first collaboration with both artists.
“Made To Appear” explores themes of identity, human connection, and authenticity within an increasingly performative social landscape. The exhibition invites 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.
With time, place and self at the forefront, Brian Robertson isolates moments of personal significance causing the viewer to move between the captured scene and the recalled memories filled with fleeting imperfections but true raw emotions. Robertson offers an exploration of how spaces and experiences are continuously reimagined for both the self and an audience leading us to question the nature of memory, perception, and authenticity. Robertson moves through domestic scenes familiar to all where each “knick-knack” inhabiting the space represents a moment in time, a person, a gift or a memory that can romanticize the past, question the nature of time, bend space and ultimately entwine. The use of material in his pieces introduces us to an experimental world of rich layered textures and whimsical aesthetics which weaves a unique narrative that blurs the boundaries of real life and dreamlike distortions.
Viraj Khanna is a visual artist from India who works with textile and embroidery. The first artist to be included in the Forbes '30 Under 30' lists in both India and Asia, his practice draws on themes of documentation and performativity in social media.
Khanna's narrative-driven works examine the imagery of perfection and people's desires to portray their most eye-catching and meaningful moments on social media. He employs three-dimensional threadwork to stylize these images into dreamlike compositions. Khanna studied Business Administration at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (2018) and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2025).
His solo exhibitions include: Rajiv Menon Contemporary, Los Angeles (2025), Gallery Art Exposure, Kolkata (2021), Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai (2022 and 2025), Gallery Art Exposure, Bikaner House, India Art Fair, New Delhi (2022), Tao Art Gallery, India Art Fair, New Delhi (2023) and Kalakriti Art Gallery, India Art Fair, New Delhi (2025).
He has also participated in group exhibitions in India and internationally: Space 118, Mumbai (2022), Snowball Studios, Mumbai (2023), National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai (2024), Rajiv Menon Contemporary, Los Angeles (2024), Harper’s East Hampton (2024), LATITUDE 28, New Delhi (2025), Art Dubai, LATITUDE 28, Dubai (2025) and Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York (2026).
Khanna's work is held in several notable collections across the world including The Bunker Art Space, Miami; The Diane Allen Collection; the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, and the Michael and Susan Hort Collection, New York.
Brian Robertson, graduated BFA from Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design and based in LA, moves beyond capturing human identity by shaping his work as we shape our existence; through collected experiences. A defining feature of his art is what he refers to as “fabric printing” where fabric is pressed into acrylic paint, placed on canvas and removed to reveal a detailed imprint. After these marks, he applies yarn and string to build fluid and striking forms. In addition, loose threads are left on the surface to comment on traditional arts, memory and the imperfections of daily life. Robertson typically begins his creative process based on a photograph then adds elements he knows are present but not yet visible. He engages in bending perspective, adding, subtracting or flattening elements largely influenced by a combination of surrealism, romanticism, abstraction and Japanese print design. Although a very process based artist in his practice of embedding & removing fabric, Robertson states that each step starts a dialogue with the next leading to varying results. The main subject of his works is often himself or a scene in his day to day life but carefully picked apart through an exploration of identity, longing, connection and change.
