Biography
My work explores the narrative behind found/discarded objects. I begin my work by going for a walk, collecting discarded fragments from people’s lives. These can be anything from shards of wood, pieces of plastic to abandoned shoes. I explore what these artefacts mean to me, referencing my own experience of migration and exile, growing up during my childhood in India but spending most of my adult life in the UK. The objects I collect share a fragmented history. My work takes varied forms from painting through to sculpture and installation. The underlying core is a fascination with perception and memory. The idea of ‘sanctuary’ as a place of refuge and retreat relates closely to my work. I would like to approach this project by thinking about tension between the inside and outside of a ‘home’.
Proposal
I have recently been walking in a woodland. Trees are universal, wood being used to build houses in different parts of the world. When trees die the bark peels away, it is no longer an essential part of a living tree as it once was. This bark interests me as a surface for drawing. I would like to take objects from everyday life which may be found inside a home and juxtapose them with an outer surface natural surface such as bark. Thinking about the inside of a home, a place of refuge, books and journals are often found. While I was walking along the beach recently I came across a washed-up copy of the journal ‘National Geographic’, most of the pages had disintegrated with only parts of photographs and text being visible. I want to take this object as a starting point to explore how fragments of found images can relate to a more personal narrative. The third piece of work which I would like to make is about a damaged doll that I have acquired from a children’s clinic in the UK. I would like this doll to become linked to the childrens’ hospice in Kenya hence some how connecting damaged children in different parts of the world. Rather than focusing solely on ‘damage’ however, the emphasis will be on resilience, how children can survive in spite of the adversity encountered in their lives.
