Karmakar’s interiors are sumptuous and mysterious; and even when they are sometimes tawdry, he elevates them with the burnished light glowing through a yellow curtain. Sources of deep, recessive light—warm and mellow, luminous behind shades—are ubiquitous in these paintings, marking Karmakar’s homage to the Old Masters, to Rembrandt and Vermeer. But the masters are not trapped in reverent emulation; instead, they are brought back into the currency of living exchange through citation and adaptation. 

Karmakar is clearly drawn to the primacy of idea; the vehicle of realism and specifics of technique, though honed to a craft-like skill, are secondary. His paintings of single, life-sized doors are based on the conceptualization of the door as an autonomous entity, extracted from the wider narrative and compositional syntax of the interior. He covers the surface of the door with meticulously painted stains, scratches, and traces of dirt, numerous marks that not only speak of the door’s function, but also the cultural and social origin of its user. The realistic rendition of the door lures the beholder into surrendering to the visual illusion of an infinite space behind

Text courtesy Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke.