Everything’s shrinking, from price tags and canvas sizes to payment models, as curators and gallerists experiment with fresh themes to tap a new audience. In the small Goan village of Kumbharjuva, where he was born in 1991, Diptej Vernekar grew up amid carnivals and floats that fascinated him. The son of a carpenter, this artist was most attracted by the mechanical movements that would be incorporated within the float decorations. Vernekar has been part of several art exhibitions around the country, including the Serendipity Arts Festival in 2017, and has picked up awards and recognition along the way. Moving between performance, installation, moving image, and painting, there is an infectious restlessness to his work. Starting out with portraiture during his undergraduate studies, Vernekar has moved beyond the drawings, to the many layers that lie beneath it, and uses multiple media such as paintings, videos and installations. The sound and video projections that are included in his works continue to employ the kinetic mechanisms that he would employ as a teenager to decorate the village floats.