ARTIST STATEMENT
My work focuses on two compelling experiences.
One, as a visual artist, my work is a response to the massive amounts of visual information that we encounter. With the advent of new technologies, the production and consumption of images has increased exponentially. My reaction as an artist is that each person has to choose images to focus on, in order to create meaning. I do not want to be a passive consumer of images, but rather an active participant in the making of images.
For me, that means that I choose images that address the bi-cultural sense of my identity.
This is the second experience I want to address with my work. It deals with the fact of immigration from India to America with my family in 1971, and its impact on my sense of self and identity. I have sought ways to create a dialogue between these two cultures because both have defined and changed me in important ways.
The work on view challenges the notion of boundaries -- erasing borders. It breaches the divide between West and East, between handmade work and mechanical reproduction, “high” and “low” art sources, the religious and the secular, past culture and current “reality”, and finally the duality of masculine and feminine.
BIO
Education: B. A. Columbia College, Columbia University, 1980
M. A. Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, Columbia University, 1983
Studies: Columbia University, New York, Department of Art, 1975 – 1980
Parson School of Art, New York, 1985 – 1987
School of Visual Arts, New York, 1989 – 1991
Hochschule der Bildenden Künste, Berlin, 1991 – 1993
Awards:
- Weir Farm Trust Grant: Painting, 2006
- Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Painting 2005-06
- VSC Residency: Full Fellowship Award, 2005: Vermont Studio Center
- VSC Residency: Full Fellowship Award, 2002: The Institute for Civil Society
Exhibitions / Installations:
- Visual Arts Gallery (New Delhi, India): Jan. 24 - Feb. 02, 2012, Group Exhibition: "Adbhutam – Rasa in Indian Art"
- CIMA Gallery (Kolkata, Calcutta, India): Dec. 2 - Dec. 31, 2011, Group Exhibition: "Adbhutam – Rasa in Indian Art"
- Erasing Borders:Art of the Indian Diaspora, Travelling Group Show
- Queens Museum, April 2011
- Wang Center, Stonybrook University, May 2011
- AICON Gallery, August 2011
- University of Connecticut, December 2011
- The Exquisite Corpse, Solo Exhibition, India Habitat Center, Delhi. Dec. 2010
- Figment, Art Installation, Governor’s Island, NY, June 2009
- Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, India, February 2007
- Unesco Headquarters, Bali Indonesia, January 2007
- Ernst Museum, Budapest, Hungary, Summer 2005
- Arpad Gallery, Balatonfüred, Hungary, Summer 2004
- “Prism”, Group Exhibition, Advocate Gallery, Los Angeles, Summer 2003
- “ArtWallah 2002”, Group Exhibition, ArtShare, Los Angeles, Spring 2002
- “alienNation”, Group Exhibition, Harbourside Gallery, Toronto, Summer 2001
- “ArtWallah 2001”, Group Exhibition, ArtShare, Los Angeles, Spring 2001
- “Diasporadics”, Group Exhibition, Riverside Church, New York, Summer 2000
- Solo exhibition:“Jungli Beauties”, Burgh House Gallery, London, U.K,Spring 2000
- Solo exhibition:“Divide Paintings”,GalerieOst-Art, Berlin, Germany, Summer 1997
- Solo exhibition: New paintings, Galerie 7 Raben, Berlin, Germany, 1993
- “Artists of Color fight AIDS”, Group Exhibition, Art in General Gallery, New YorkCity,1991
- “Artists against AIDS”, Group Exhibition, Clinton Street Gallery, New York City, 1989
Residencies:
- The Corporation at Yaddo, Fall 2006
- Weir Farm Trust, Fall 2006
- Macdowell Residency, Spring 2006
- Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, Spring 2005
- Triangle Arts Association Workshop, Dumbo, Brooklyn, October 2004
- Hungarian Multicultural Center, Balatonfüred, Hungary, June 2004
- Caldera, Sisters, Oregon, April 2004
- Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, Spring 2002
- Sumei Multicultural Art Center, Newark, NJ ,Spring 2002
Other: Drawing Center, New York, NY, Selection for the Slide Registry, 2005
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