Home Bharti Kher
About
Bharti Kher is renowned Indian contemporary artist, whose work predominantly comprises of vibrant painting, remarkable sculpture and installation, often created with the usage of bindis (worn by women in India on their forehead to enhance their beauty) in her work.
She was born and raised in England. Later on, at the age of 23years she decided to move to New Delhi. And today, like most of her contemporaries, often travel across the globe to attend the exclusive exhibitions of her artwork. Thus, the impression of home as the location of individuality and ethos is persistently challenged in her form of work. Now, she is happily married to Indian Contemporary Artist Subodh Gupta.
Education & Work
She embarked on a formal training in the field of art in 1991 from Newcastle Polytechnic.
Bharti Kher’s is an art of ephemerality, a true reflection of her own, largely itinerant life. She has been highly admiredfor her sculptural works and even created paintings and installations that challengetraditional and societalinterdicts in India. Kher’s work is diversified. It reflects handy, minimalism and abstraction (through reverberation), mythology and narrativity.
Multi-layered and multi-colored bindis are largely found in her artwork. A recurring motif in her work, like the wheel imbedded in the centre of the Indian flag, the bindi is at the heart of social and cultural distinctiveness and can be observed as a symbol of a married woman and her position in society.
In sculptures and collages, Bhartihas created hybrid beings that adjoin ambiguities of gender, species, race and role. Her work richly reflects magic realism. Extremely narrative, they tap into mythologies, but congruently form their own eccentric stories.
She has actively participated in solo exhibitions in Parasol Unit, London, UK; Nature Morte, New Delhi, India; Hauser & Wirth, New York, NY; Leave Your Smell, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris, France and House Beautiful, Gallery SKE, Bangalore, India, to name a few.
Bharti also exhibited her heterogeneous artwork in various group exhibitions, including Indian Highway V, MAXXI MuseoNazionaledelleArti del XXI, Rome Italy; Paris-Delhi-Bombay, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Khoj Residency Show, Khoj Studios, New Delhi; Creative Space, Sakshi Gallery, at Habitat Centre, New Delhi; Cryptograms, Lakeeren Art Gallery, Mumbai; Zeitsprünge, Raumfolgen, IFA Galerie, Stuttgart, Germany; Marvellous Reality, Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, India; Ancient Knowledge in Contemporary Art, Lucerne, Switzerland; The Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; Pattern ID, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH and Indian Highway, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway, to name a few.
Awards and Accolades
In 2003, Bharti was honoured with The Sanskriti Award. She bagged YFLO Woman Achiever of the Year in the year 2007 and ARKEN Art Prize in the year 2010.
