Javed Akhtar (b. 1990, Kolkata) is an artist based in Mumbai, India. He earned an MFA in Painting from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, Shantiniketan in 2015, and a BFA in Painting from the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata in 2012. Akhtar further specialized in Far Eastern art as a research scholar at Nanjing University of the Arts, China, from 2015 to 2017. His work has been exhibited widely in India, China, and South Korea, including at CIMA, Nandan, Birla Academy, AMNUA Museum of Art, and the Seoul Museum of Art. He has participated in the International Artist Residency at the Seoul Museum of Art (2019) and has received numerous accolades, including the Chinese Government Scholarship Award (2015), the Prince Claus Mobility Fund (2019), and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (2011, 2015, 2019).

Javed primarily works in painting, exploring it as a contemporary tool to document and interpret socio-political and environmental challenges. Through his practice, he seeks to capture the complexities of human experience—anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and the mysteries of life and death—using a style that merges realism with a touch of the magical. For Javed, painting is both a means of self-consolation and a journey of self-discovery, where the process often holds more significance than the finished piece.