Artist Statement
My work is based on traditional material practices. Drawing from my experience as part of the South Asian diaspora, I use textiles to examine our shared history to confront feelings of alienation and dissociation. In my sculptures and installations, the boundary between human, animal, and flora dissolve to tell a story of isolation, migration, and evolution. Familiar shapes evoke our collective memory of early vessels, tools, and bones - objects once buried and forgotten, now restored through the ritual of felting. Each piece functions as an intimate excavation as the fibers shift and resettle creating unexpected marks that rise to the surface. The act of sewing, tying, and tangling fibers together, is an attempt to repair ruptured bonds between body, environment, and community. Wool is primal, spiritual, and bound to nature. Textiles, a source of warmth and shelter, offer a tactile antidote to our disenchantment with the modern world. I collaborate with the material and the process allowing long-forgotten truths to emerge.
Mama-Sita 2023 wool, yarn, flower petals 7ft x 2ft x 2ft