Valay Shende Biography & Career

Valay Shende is an Indian sculptor and video artist born in Nagpur in 1980. He received a Diploma in Art Teaching in Nagpur before studying sculpture at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, where he completed his BFA in 2004. In 2006 he undertook an artist residency at Point Éphémère in Paris. Shende lives and works in Mumbai and has exhibited internationally, with projects and presentations in India, France, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and other locations. His practice is closely tied to close observation of contemporary Indian urban life and the pressures placed on ordinary people within rapidly changing social and economic systems.

Shende works through sculpture, installation and video, often using unconventional construction methods and materials including small metal discs, stainless steel, pocket watches and copper-plated fiberglass. His large-scale figurative sculptures translate social tensions into highly crafted physical objects. A key work, Bhaiya Indian, depicts a six-foot security guard with eight arms holding objects associated with multiple forms of labour, while mechanical elements appear along the exposed spine. Across his practice, the divide between modern industrial development and traditional religious or social structures becomes a recurring subject. The artist’s works combine technical precision with forceful social commentary, transforming observations of migration, labour, urban inequality and everyday struggle into monumental sculptural form.