Born in 1981 Varunika Saraf hails from Hyderabad She completed her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, Hyderabad She received her MFA in Painting from the University of Hyderabad She received a scholarship both from JNTU and the University of Hyderabad She also got a Master’s in Philosophy from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi In the year 2006, she was honoured with Kashi Awards for Visual arts and she received Junior Research fellowship from the University Grants Commission, New Delhi for three years from 2007 to 2009 In the year 2008, she got a visiting fellowship from the Max-Planck-Institute, Florence Post that from the year 2010 to 2012 she did the senior research fellowship by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi In the summer of 2012, she received the highly coveted Charles Wallace India Trust Visiting Fellowship, Centre of South Asian studies, Cambridge Her aim is to find a harmony between Fine and Applied Arts and she is influenced in equal measure by both European style and traditional Indian canons She has had various solo and group exhibitions both in the country and internationally In 2008 she had a solo show titled ‘Tales of our Times’, Kashi Art Gallery, Kochi and another one titled ‘The Chair in the Cloud’ at Galerie Mirchandani, Mumbai in 2010 As recently as 2018 she was one of the few Indian artists who participated in the 49th edition of Art Basel, Switzerland