Sunaina Rajan On Building Gallery Maxima, Mumbai’s Newest Home For Emerging South Asian Art

Fort takes its name from the old Fort George, the fortified nucleus of British colonial Bombay built in the late 17th century, whose walls were demolished in the 1860s to make way for the grand civic buildings that still define the neighbourhood today. Publishing houses, artist studios, and archives have occupied its streets for well over a century, making it, arguably, the closest thing Mumbai has to an intellectual and cultural nucleus. It is here, on the second floor of Kitab Mahal on D Sukhadwala Road, that Gallery Maxima opened in June 2026. 

Founder Sunaina Rajan brings to it a curatorial background spanning Chemould CoLab, which she co-founded, alongside stints at Nature Morte, Chemould Prescott Road, Lévy Gorvy Dayan, The Art Institute of Chicago, Reliance Industries, and the Museum of Art and Photography in Bengaluru. Occupying a 1,600 square foot space with arched thresholds, curved windows, original stone flooring, and soaring ceilings, the gallery is focused specifically on emerging and mid-career artists from South Asia and its diaspora, with a programme built around material inquiry, cultural memory, lived histories, and evolving regional narratives.

"It is an exciting moment for contemporary art in India," Rajan says during an exclusive conversation with Robb Report India. "There is tremendous energy across the ecosystem, with artists producing ambitious work, new galleries emerging, and a growing community of collectors who want to participate in larger cultural conversations. At Gallery Maxima, I am focused on championing painting and supporting artists whose practices demonstrate rigour and feel genuinely fresh. I want to stay with them for the long haul and nurture their careers." 

Robb Report India (RR): Gallery Maxima opens in Kitab Mahal, a building in Fort that has housed generations of artists, publishers, and archivists. How much of the decision to open here was deliberate, and what does Fort's cultural density mean for the kind of gallery you are trying to build?

Sunaina Rajan (SR): Mumbai is where so much of the energy of the Indian art ecosystem is concentrated, and Fort has always been at the centre. With this location, you're within walking distance of galleries like Chemould Prescott Road, Subcontinent, and TARQ, and only a few minutes' drive from Ballard Estate and Colaba. I love that visitors can spend an afternoon hopping between galleries, especially on Art Night Thursday, as it contributes to forming a community.

As a gallerist, you need to think of many things when selecting a space: wide doors to bring artworks through, windows to allow natural light so that even large displays do not feel suffocating, and lifts to offer easy access. The space also needs to be adaptive to different forms and mediums. When I discovered this space in Kitab Mahal, I realised it had everything I wanted: high ceilings, uninhibited space, natural light, and the gorgeous heritage of the building: a beautiful spiral wooden staircase and the dusty-baby-blue façade. Rather than competing with the architecture, contemporary art is given a richer context within it.

RR: Gallery Maxima is specifically focused on emerging and mid-career South Asian artists. In a market where collectors still largely defer to Western validation, how do you build a programme that changes that?

SR: I think the conversation is already shifting. Collectors today are increasingly informed, curious, and willing to engage with younger artists before institutional validation arrives. Our responsibility as galleries is to create the conditions that build confidence around those artists. That means presenting artists whose work genuinely expands contemporary art rather than following established formulas, producing thoughtful exhibitions, commissioning strong writing to accompany the show, investing in good photography and documentation, and creating meaningful public programming. Equally important is making galleries more approachable.

Every visitor who walks through our doors should feel welcome, whether they're a seasoned collector, an art or architecture student, or someone visiting their first exhibition. And for those looking for western validation, India is part of the global conversation now more than ever before: India at the Venice Biennale, on museum boards, Indian artists presenting shows in major museums, public projects and commissions in the biggest cities, and part of major art fairs and collections.

RR: You have said you want to stay with artists for the long haul. What does that commitment actually look like in practice for a gallery that is just opening?

SR: For me, it begins long before the exhibition opens and continues long after it closes. There needs to be constant support provided and a genuineness to see the artist skyrocket. First is planning the exhibition as a body of work rather than a collection of individual paintings pulled from inventory. I'm constantly sharing references with artists: a museum installation I've seen, a piece of writing, an interview, a notable exhibition, even a YouTube video, anything that I think might expand the way they're thinking about their practice. I also think galleries have a responsibility to help artists build sustainable studio practices. We spend a lot of time discussing archival materials that are long-lasting and should be used, making installation and care manuals for those acquiring the work, documentation and images of process and finished works, inventory systems to track each work and price list, how to write a basic CV or bio, and most importantly, how to speak about the work and build confidence around that. The period after an exhibition is just as important as the exhibition itself and is often overlooked. It's when we sit down together and ask what comes next.

RR: The inaugural exhibition is Dream Girl, Maithili Chaturvedi's solo debut, a series of oil paintings on velvet revisiting Hindi cinema's most iconic women. What made this the right opening statement for Gallery Maxima?

SR: Maithili is an exceptional painter, but what interested me most was her ability to take something familiar, Hindi cinema, and completely reframe it. The paintings revisit iconic actresses through questions of beauty, performance, spectatorship, and the construction of femininity. Contemporary art can sometimes feel intimidating for audiences encountering it for the first time, and here, visitors immediately connect as they recognise a face, a film, or a song. Her use of velvet is also so fresh. Instead of painting on a traditional white muslin canvas, she works on richly coloured velvet grounds, hot pinks and electric blues, that absorb and reflect light in unexpected ways. It's a remarkably confident body of work for a twenty-three-year-old artist.

RR: The space itself, arched doorways, curved windows, fifteen-foot ceilings, stone flooring, resists the neutrality of a white cube. How does the architecture of Kitab Mahal shape the way you think about programming?

SR: Kitab Mahal already possesses such a strong identity that it naturally becomes part of the experience of seeing the exhibition. The scale encourages ambitious installations, while the warmth of the building creates a very different atmosphere from a conventional white cube. I am also interested to see, over time, how exhibiting artists respond to the space. Some may engage with its history, others with its characteristics, and that could find its way into their work, especially if it's site-specific.

Dream Girl, Maithili Chaturvedi's solo debut, is on view at Gallery Maxima, 2nd Floor, Kitab Mahal, D Sukhadwala Road, Azad Maidan, Fort, Mumbai, from June 27 to August 1, 2026. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10:30 am to 6:30 pm.