The artists India’s top collectors love

Michelle Poonawalla, Artist and Collector

Michelle Poonawalla doesn’t buy art to fill walls, she acquires it because it demands to be lived with. The granddaughter of architect-artist Jehangir Vazifdar, she’s always understood the power of structure, material, and form. But she also knows that what makes a piece truly livable is how it resonates in the quietest corners of the home. Her style of collecting is instinctive and deeply personal: she lets artworks guide the design, not the other way around.

It’s this intuition that leads her to Subodh Gupta, whose monumental sculptures of everyday utensils turn the ordinary into something profound. Michelle admires how his work honours memory and labour, transforming steel lotas and pans into evocative, reflective architecture. In her spaces, Subodh’s pieces feel both familiar and expansive, rooted in the domestic but reaching for something universal. On the other hand, Shilpa Gupta represents a more contemplative impulse in her collection. Shilpa’s use of sound, text, and minimal light creates installations that don’t shout, they whisper. In a home, her work introduces a kind of emotional stillness, a gentle pressure for reflection. Michelle values this subtlety: these are artworks that shift a room not by volume, but by their inner quiet.

Sanya Malik, Founder and Director, Black Cube Gallery

Sanya Malik grew up in a space steeped in modern and contemporary art, and that upbringing continues to inform her collecting. She follows her emotional compass when buying; she doesn’t let a room dictate what she brings in. Instead, she lets each piece land where it naturally feels right, and her interiors respond accordingly.

One of her anchors is Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi, whose 15-foot graphite drawing, Substance of Life, dominates her living wall. The piece’s fine detail and expansive negative space arrest the eye and slow down the pace of the room, turning her home into a place where silence and observation feel intentional.

To balance this formality, she gravitates toward Yashika Sugandh, a watercolour miniature artist whose flora and fauna imbue her delicate works with nostalgia, softness, and a quiet curiosity. Yashika’s paintings invite close looking, slowly revealing their charm; in Sanya’s home, they soften structure and add a whisper of warmth.

Shireen Gandhy, Director, Chemould Prescott Road

Shireen Gandhy has spent her life where art, history, and architecture intersect. In her family’s 105-year-old bungalow, contemporary interventions converse with colonial-era photographs, creating a home that is alive with memory and meaning. Art for her isn’t an accessory, it’s a form of life.

She highlights Jayeeta Chatterjee, whose work combines textile craft with conceptual depth. Through kantha embroidery, block printing, photography, and painting, often layered on the surface of a sari, Jayeeta weaves histories and ideas into her pieces. In homes, her work brings intimacy and texture, an emotional weight that feels both handcrafted and intellectually rich. For Shireen, Jayeeta offers a voice that is rooted, deep, and quietly transformative.

Sahil Arora, Founder and Curator, Method

Sahil Arora’s entry into collecting was humble: watercolours spotted in a café in Goa, bought on impulse. That same openness defines his home today. His collection isn’t built on strategy, it’s built on feeling. He buys what moves him, and lets the space follow.

Pairing this, Sahil has long admired Gargi Chandola, whose miniature-inspired narratives center around a compelling woman navigating humour, strength, vulnerability, and absurdity. Gargi’s work doesn’t just fill the room, it starts conversations, drawing people in with its stories.

His first pick is Darshika Singh, whose abstract paintings are slow rituals in pigment and gesture. She makes only a few every year, each one meditative and deeply structural. In a living space, her work becomes a moment of pause, a reminder that art can be both powerful and gentle. 

Dr. Tarana Khubchandani, Founder & Director, Art & Soul

Dr. Tarana Khubchandani collects with heart. She and her husband began buying simply because certain pieces spoke to them—not for investment, but for connection. In their home, art is chosen by resonance, not by renown.

She champions Meenakshi Nihalani, a Bombay-based artist whose practice is woven from the stories of post-Partition Sindhi women who rebuilt their lives using embroidery and weaving. These women’s lives, labour, and heritage inform Meenakshi’s work, giving it both material beauty and historical weight. To Tarana, her pieces bring into a home a gentle archive of memory and strength.

Her other pick, Madhuri Kathe, works in layered textiles and mixed media to build abstract, meditative canvases. Madhuri’s process of covering and revealing creates surfaces that feel sacred and slow. In a domestic space, her art offers sanctuary—a visual pause, a place where light, material, and reflection breathe together.

At their core, these five collectors show us that choosing art for your home is not a transaction, it is a conversation. The artists they champion—Subodh, Shilpa, Phaneendra, Yashika, Darshika, Gargi, Jayeeta, Meenakshi, and Madhuri—are not just objects of desire, but companions in living. Their work shifts how a room feels, how a home sounds, how a life unfolds. And that, perhaps, is the greatest form of collecting: selecting not just for value, but for presence, purpose, and soul.