Legend goes that in 1993 British artist Bharti Kher flipped a coin to decide her fate between New York and Delhi. Chance dealt her Delhi, India and her studio is still based there today. Despite being an internationally renowned and critically acclaimed artist since her rise in the art world in 2006, she is only now having her first major North American survey exhibition currently on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Perrotin
Through photography, sculpture and mixed media Kher explores a diverse range of themes and materials. Recurring in her work is the use of found objects such as saris, mirrors and bindis. The artist reimagines the materials as ways to explore ideas about love, gender, traditional and contemporary Indian culture, sexuality, the body and hybridity to name a few.
Spend time admiring the goddesses inspired by figures from mythology that were all cast from real individuals as part of her hybridized sculpture and photography series. The women are powerful and serene supernatural warriors and bringers of life like the Chinnamasta figure titled And All the While the Benevolent Slept; this particular goddess has a macabre story but she is oh so divine!
Take a close look at the work titled An Absence of Assignable Cause. You can’t miss it, it’s a giant fiberglass sculpture in the form of a sperm whale’s heart coated in layers of bindis! Oddly enough, no marine biologist has been able to study a sperm whale’s anatomy; Kher used scientific speculative sketches and her own artistic license to envision the scale and shape of the organ.
The fantastical and dreamlike exhibition offers an introspective space where each striking work poses a series of questions with no correct answer. Kher enjoys that her art will be interpreted differently by each viewer and she acknowledges that all visitors will approach her work with their own unique experiences and knowledge. —Laura Busby
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Perrotin
The exhibition Bharti Kher: Matter is available July 9 to Oct. 10, 2016750 Hornby Street, Vancouver Open daily 10am to 5pm
Adult admission $24, Student $18. Tuesday evenings by donation 5pm to 10pm. www.vanartgallery.bc.ca
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