Born 1974, India

Lives and works in India

Nikhil Chopra combines approaches associated with theater, portraiture, landscape drawing, photography, art actions, and installation to chronicle the world through live performance. As the Victorian draughtsman Yog Raj Chitrakar, Chopra haunts bustling market squares, forgotten old buildings, city streets, and museum galleries to make large-scale drawings. Within the performances, daily actions—washing, eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, shaving, and observing—are transformed into ritualistic spectacle. While an ambiguous past collides with an unstable present, Yog Raj Chitrakar reveals the process of documenting what he sees while exploring self-portraiture, autobiography, history, fantasy, and sexuality.

Nikhil Chopra’s work has been included in “Indian Highway” at the Serpentine Gallery (2008–09), “Making Worlds” at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009), and “Marina Abramovic Presents,” the Manchester International Festival (2009). He lives and works in Mumbai, India.