Sharmistha Kar

SHARMISTHA KAR

Sharmistha Kar

Soft Shelter V, 2019

Sharmistha Kar is an art practitioner from India and currently living and working in London, Ontario. She holds an MFA from Western University, focusing on hand-embroidery.

Kar’s early education began in West Bengal, India and later continued in Hyderabad where she pursued higher education in Fine Arts at the University of Hyderabad in 2009. She then pursued her studio practice as an invited artist at Space Studio, Vadodara, Gujarat, India returning to Hyderabad in 2012 to join the International Institute of Information Technology as a lecturer. She was awarded the prestigious Charles Wallace India Trust Award to do a three months artist in residence program at Newcastle University, United Kingdom in 2013. After her return, she worked as a visiting faculty member at Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University in Hyderabad. She was awarded with the Gold Medal for First Rank as an MFA, University of Hyderabad in 2009; and Dean’s and Chair’s Entrance Scholarships at Western University, London, Ontario in 2016, as well as the Graduate Thesis Research Award in 2018.

Kar’s journey with hand-embroidery started as a student in Calcutta, India, and she has used that knowledge as a medium in her art practice, from 2008 onward, along with drawing and painting. She has exhibited in India, UK, the USA, Finland and in Canada. Kar is one of the artists involved in GardenShip & State which will open at Museum London in September 2021. For more information, please visit her website.

Earth Day 2021: Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth

Sharmistha Kar, Soft Shelter-Tabernacles and the river, 2020

The work, titled Soft Shelter-Tabernacles and the river, focuses on the Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River and also known as the Thames River) in London, Ontario. Rivers are fundamental to human society because it was in river valleys and deltas that the first great civilizations were found around agriculture. I see the Deshkan Ziibi almost every day, especially when crossing one of the many bridges that span it. I am always fascinated that the human structures around rivers depend on the river as a life source. The rivers, however, are organic and take different shapes at different times, regardless of the human societies developing around them. I am aware of and sincerely appreciate the active ongoing project to maintain the Deshkan Ziibi's well-being in London, Ontario. This particular work reflects the idea of growth, mobility, personhood in nature and culture from an individual experience.

International Women's Day 2021: Go; Rise and Strike

Knowing Her- Malala Yousafzai, hand-embroidery and found lace flower, 2014

My studio practice includes research on the idea of mobility, temporality, journey, the gap between neuro-memory and social memory, archive along with the process of hand-embroidery. Culture, mapping, personal identity, labour, landscapes are some areas where my artistic practice developed during the past years. I have become more aware of the role of my studio practice to articulate my social position.

Working with textile materials sourced from diverse cultures and places is fundamental to my research, as it made me aware of their historical significance and their adaptation in contemporary art. In my embroidery work, I have used recycled fabric from thrift stores in London, Ontario, discarded fabric from my family in West Bengal and other parts of India, and tarpaulin. My use of single and layered fabric added significance and resemblance with the embroidered surface of the hand-embroidered quilt of Bengal, India. Showing the recto and verso of the embroidered artwork on the same side raises the question of how I understand duality or binary opposition of any kind. These works enhance and provide an opportunity to explore certain sculptural possibilities by activating the space through their installation. The process of embroidery helped me to see the idea of the mapping of my experience. The traditional Japanese embroidery technique, Bunka, its fragile quality, reminds me of the temporary or the incompleteness of my experience.

My interest in both studio practice and theoretical research helps me to articulate, question and develop my growing interest in hand-embroidery and how I understand embellishment as a concept. Glenn Adamson’s book, Thinking Through Craft offers an approach to see craft more than skill, and not related only to the category of object or people, but rather as a process. I use materials and processes associated with practices of craft and my focus is on exploring the process in relation to contemporary subjects such as culture, mapping, personal identity, labour, mobility and landscape.