First major survey exhibition of British-Indian artist on display at Ikon Gallery

Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery is presenting Lines of Flight, the first major survey exhibition of British Indian artist Balraj Khanna.

The exhibition is on view from the 30 September 2026 until the 21 February 2027 and will bring together more than 40 paintings made over six decades.

It will offer the most comprehensive overview to date of Khanna’s remarkable career as a painter, writer and curator.

The exhibition will trace the evolution of the artists distinctive vision of abstraction, shaped by his youth in the Punjab region of India, his life in post-war Britain, and an enduring fascination with the natural world.

Born in Jhang, Punjab (now Pakistan), and based in Britain from 1962, Khanna developed a distinctive artistic language informed by migration, memory, landscape, and cultural exchange.

Across a career spanning six decades, he produced a substantial body of paintings, reliefs, writings, and publications.

By 1964, Khanna was a member of the Indian Painters Collective, which championed the representation of Indian artists in Britain.

Following his first solo exhibition in 1965, he exhibited widely across the UK, France and the United States.

His inclusion in the landmark exhibition The Other Story at Hayward Gallery (1989), the display of his work at Tate Britain in 2024, and the presence of his paintings and archives in major public collections, including Tate Britain, Arts Council England and the Victoria and Albert Museum, reflect the increasing recognition of his contribution to post-war British art.

A self-taught artist, Khanna witnessed the Partition of India in 1947 before relocating to London in 1962. Following a road accident in 1965, a period of recuperation in Metz, France, proved pivotal to his practice.

Immersed in the surrounding Forêt de Saint-Bernard near Metz, he began to develop a highly individual form of abstraction, characterised by layered surfaces, the use of line and string, organic and geometric forms, and an acute sense of spatial rhythm.

Rarely seen works from the 1960s and 70s will be presented alongside large-scale compositions from the 1970s to the early 2000s.

Early paintings inspired by the forests of Metz, France, are shown alongside later works exploring childhood memories, diasporic identity, postcolonial politics and the enduring

The exhibition also celebrates Khanna’s deep connection to Birmingham through Astral Dance (2001), his monumental painted safety curtain for Birmingham Hippodrome, which marks its 25th anniversary this year.

To coincide with this milestone, Ikon will collaborate with Birmingham Hippodrome on public programmes, curator-led tours, and learning initiatives, offering new insight into the commission while extending access to Khanna’s work for audiences across Birmingham and the West Midlands.

An accompanying fully illustrated monograph, published by Ikon and distributed by art data, will be the first major reference publication on Khanna’s work.

It will include a foreword and text on the Birmingham Hippodrome commission by Ikon’s Artistic Director (Exhibitions), Melanie Pocock, alongside newly commissioned texts by leading art historians, including Dr Elena Crippa, Dr Alina Khakoo, Dr Aparna Kumar, and Dr Cleo Roberts-Komireddi, with extensive archival material.

Admission to the exhibition is free, and it will be accompanied by a programme of events, talks and family activities.