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Through a deeply involved creative process, Bharti Kher reimagines a constellation of materials and found objects in often unexpected ways to create sculptures and installations that explore themes of race, gender, identity, and the relationship between humans and the natural world. The artist moved from London, where she was born to immigrant parents in 1969, to New Delhi in the early 1990s, which she says has given her the dual perspective of... Through a deeply involved creative process, Bharti Kher reimagines a constellation of materials and found objects in often unexpected ways to create sculptures and installations that explore themes of race, gender, identity, and the relationship between humans and the natural world. The artist moved from London, where she was born to immigrant parents in 1969, to New Delhi in the early 1990s, which she says has given her the dual perspective of both insider and outsider. However, although frequently referencing Indian tradition and society in her work, Kher resists being labelled a ‘diaspora’ artist, a term heavy with colonial connotations. She asserts that rather than being explicitly autobiographical or country-specific, her art is universal with a link to broader issues of humanity and history.

Kher began working with the bindi in 1995. It subsequently became the artist’s trademark material as she deconstructed and subverted its cultural associations, using thousands of mass-produced bindis to form a “second skin” over large-scale animal sculptures. She also arranges them on sheets of aluminium or broken mirrors in dynamic patterns that evoke the appearance of kinetic diagrams or satellite imagery. In the present lot, bindis appear to explode in busy patterns across a shattered mirror in the manner of a great cosmic supernova. The choice of materials recalls a daily ritual shared by millions of Indian women, that of placing a bindi on one’s forehead then later transferring it to a mirror for safe keeping at the end of the day. Explains the artist, “I think that breaking the mirrors came about like fracture. A physical act of defiance as well as celebration and mischief: ‘I will break this mirror and nothing will happen to me.’ And then, to challenge other people’s ideas of what they think about a broken mirror, because it’s my karma, it’s not yours.” (Artist quoted in “A Conversation With Bharti Kher”, MOMMY by Susan Silas and Chrysanne Stathacos, 1 November 2013, online)

Through her work, Kher both shares in and subverts this ritual, transforming it into a meditative process. Each bindi is placed by hand with the help of a team of specially trained assistants, emphasising the ritualistic and cultural significance of the material. What may seem like a repetitive task to some is, for Kher, a profound, contemplative act. This meticulous process underscores the cultural resonance of the bindis while simultaneously creating new layers of meaning.

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