Bharti Kher Wiki, Age, Husband, Family, Biography & More

Bharti Kher is an England-born Indian contemporary artist, who is known for her artworks like sculptures, paintings, and installations. She is mainly known for devising the bindi theme that she has used in most of her artworks. She usually highlights the issues such as migration, identity, sexuality, femininity, social roles, gender relationships, traditional rituals, and the culture of India in her artworks. She represents the feminine perspective of the Indian patriarchal society in her artworks. In her career span, she has worked with famous art galleries like Hauser & Wirth, Galerie Perrotin, GALLERYSKE, and Nature Morte.

Wiki/Biography

Bharti Kher was born in 1969 (age 53 years; as of 2022) in England. From 1987 to 1988, she studied at Middlesex Polytechnic, Cat Hill, London, and afterwards, she pursued the Foundation Course in Art and Design at Newcastle Polytechnic and received a degree in Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting (1988-1991). After completing her bachelor’s degree in London, Bharti Kher decided to travel to India in 1993. After spending a few weeks in India, she decided to stay in New Delhi and continued her painting work.

Physical Appearance

Height (approx.): 5′ 6″

Hair Colour: Black

Eye Colour: Black

Family

She belongs to a Hindu family.

Parents & Siblings

Bharti Kher’s father was a textile merchant, and her mother was a seamstress and had her own textile shop.

Husband & Children

In 1993, Bharti Kher got married to Subodh Gupta, who is also a renowned artist. The couple has two children, Lola and Omi. ^[1]CNN

Bharti Kher with her husband, Subodh Gupta

Relationships/Affairs

After completing her graduation in London in 1992, Bharti Kher decided to travel to India for a few days. After two weeks in Delhi, she met Subodh Gupta, who also came to Delhi as a struggling artist.

In her artworks, Kher is often seen juxtaposing contradictory things and bringing her own art out of them and giving her own meanings to them. She takes inspiration from everyday life activities for her art. Her artworks reflect the culture of both England and India as she has spent her life in both countries.

Sculptures

A Natural Unity of Opposites

In 2021, a sculpture by Bharti Kher entitled “A Natural Unity Of Opposites” was exhibited in the show ‘Strange Attractors,’ held at Nature Morte Gallery, Delhi. The sculpture is a mixed-media work that includes a resin-coated saree placed folded on the trunk of a buffalo, hanging from a rope, and balanced with circular wooden beams. The art piece is influenced by the idea of “knowing self,” coined by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. In an interview, she explained this artwork and said,

The work describes the state of flux where chaos at all times could just be at a tipping point and yet there’s counterbalance and stability. We’re always managing many things, balancing things out like ourselves, families, our sense of well-being and anxieties,”

A Natural Unity of Opposites (2021) by Bharti Kher

Strange Attractors

In the same show, her other sculpture of a disfigured monkey, who is balancing a tiny house on her tail, might reflect the idea of existence and balancing. She remarked,

She’s strange but for me, she’s the shaman. She welcomes you to this strange world where we’re not really sure what’s going or coming.”  ^[2]The New Indian Express

‘Strange Attractor’ by Bharti Kher

Pieta

In this artwork, she portrayed her mother through a sculpture of plaster and wax. The masterpiece by her is inspired by Michelangelo’s Renaissance sculpture Pieta in which Mother Marry is shown carrying the dead Jesus, whereas the Pieta by Kher is a raw and weathered statue. In an interview with “The Week” magazine, while describing it, she said,

[Through Pieta] I am saying this is my mother and she is the old female ageing body. I wanted to engage with the idea of an old woman politically as well. She is not the revered goddess. I am not making her bigger than she is physically, but emotionally and psychologically this work is gigantic because our mother is the most significant person in our lives,” ^[3]The Week

Pieta by Bharti Kher

The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own

Her artwork “The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own” (2006) is one of her most talked about artworks. It is a model of a life-sized female Indian elephant made of fibreglass and layered with thousands of sperm-shaped bindis. In Indian culture and religion, the elephant represents Lord Ganesha, the god of wealth and prosperity, and the bindi is a symbol of peace and feminity. In her model, the elephant is lying on her knees, looking peaceful and painful at the same time. The model can be considered an apt archetype of India. Kher left her viewers to analyse whether the elephant is trying to rise up or lying exhausted or died. ^[4]Sotheby’s

The Skin Speaks A Language Not Its Own (2006) by Bharti Kher

Ancestor

The “Ancestor” is a giant statue of an Indian goddess who has 24 heads. It is a large version of a clay artwork of Bharti Kher. It is an 18 feet tall bronze statue, painted with some pastel shades, having a cracked and peeling surface, and it is located at Doris C. Freedman Plaza at the southeast entrance to Central Park, New York. When asked about its interpretation in an interview, the artist said,

The figure is a mother, but also contains the masculine.” The agglutinated heads represent “all her children,” she added — but also perhaps “her other selves.” ^[5]The New York Times

‘Ancestor’ Statue by Bharti Kher

In another view, while talking about her mirror art, she said,

I am tapping into the history of mirrors. The body and mind and the idea of you the self is multiple. So when you see a reflection of yourself it is many selves. You break them to fix them and create something new; it uses the idea of regeneration. It’s about loss and love, creation and destruction.” ^[7]The New Indian Express

Her other famous mirror art includes “Indra’s net mirror (series), “The Starry Night after V.G.” (2011), “Placebo landscape” (2019), “The single white line that heard the future calling” (2019), and “Gentle Bitch” (2020).

Starry Night after V.G. (2011) by Bharti Kher

Saree Work

Kher’s unique use of resin-dipped sarees for making artwork makes her distinct from other artists. She uses sarees to make wall art, sculptures (by wrapping sarees on chairs or wooden staircases), and saree portraits, which are considered the most distinct and incredible. In these portraits, she uses sarees dipped in resin and wraps them on cement pillars in such a way that it reflects the characteristics of the person to whom it is dedicated. Her saree portrait “Benazir” (2021) depicts the life and assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a Pakistani politician who had made revelations about her assassination. The five holes in her portrait tell that she was shot five times. In an interview, she talked about this and said,

The saree weaves in and out of her body, and they tell the story of her ins and outs and her comings and her goings, her needs, her desires, frustra­tions. Sarees tell the stories of our lives.” ^[8]Open

Through her saree portrait “Cloak for MM” (2018), Kher paid tribute to Mrinalini Mukherjee, a renowned sculptor and her close friend who died in 2015. Kher used Mukherjee’s own sarees to make her portrait. In an interview with “The Week” magazine, Kher said,

She was a great collector and wearer of the most fantastic textiles. This is for her. The idea of this work is that the body becomes somehow a cloak, she could be invisible, magical, somehow she can have the power of something else,” ^[9]The Week

Cloak for MM (2018) by Bharti Kher

Some of her other saree portraits include “Portrait Manju” (2013), “My friend unnamed” (2014), and “Portrait Nirmila” (2017) and her famous saree art includes “Man woman I” (2012), “Dominate” (2011), “I find a way to keep it all together” (2011), and “Many ways to say the same thing” (2010).

Dominate (2011) by Bharti Kher

Themes

Bindi

Bharti Kher is known for her signature use of bindi in her artworks. A bindi is a small dot-shaped adornment, applied on the centre of the forehead, between eyebrows by Indian women. According to Indian spiritual beliefs, a bindi symbolizes the third eye. For more than a period of two decades, Kher has been using bindi as a “code, a text, a mem­brane, and skin.” In an interview, on using bindi in her artworks, she said,

 To conceal things, to open them up, focus your eye towards a specific point on a sculpture, to lead you in. And the most interesting thing for me is it’s a language that I’ve developed for myself and my own practise, and nobody else has it. So, it’s mine. I can speak it now.” ^[10]Open

In 1996, she came up with her first bindi artwork “Spit and Swallow,” and that was the turning point when she added sculpture to her artwork. ^[11]Art Basel Some famous bindi works by Bharti Kher include “Future is not fixed (series)” (2020), “Maps (series)” (2015-17), “Formless connections” (2016), “Dark Matter MM” (2015), and “Code, cell, grid” (2013).

Formless Connections (2016) by Bharti Kher

Dark Matter MM (2015) by Bharti Kher

Intermediaries

Through her “Intermediaries” series, Bharti Kher expresses her ideas of transformation and deconstruction of narratives. In the theme of intermediaries, the artist assembles readymade coloured clay figurines (murti) to give them a new form and meaning by putting different things together. Bharti Kher uses figurines of humans, animals, and objects in her art and gives them a new meaning. Her other famous intermediary works include “Yes no” (2020), “The Fallow” (2019), “Talisman” (2019), “Sisters” (2019), “The offspring of a deity perhaps” (2019), and “The Intermediary family” (2018).

Talisman (2019) by Bharti Kher

Women and the Body

Bharti Kher also uses the theme of women and the body in her artwork. Her work entitled “Six Women” (2013-15) incorporates the sculptures of six women. Her sitters are the female sex workers, whom she paid to sit for her. She portrayed not only their physique but also the emotions on their face. The idea behind this masterpiece is to show the issue of vulnerability that comes from the nudity of females. Some other works based on the same theme are “The Hybrid series” (2004), “Mrs Hera Moon” (2006), “Arione’s sister” (2006), and “Lady with an Ermine” (2012).

Six Women (2013-2015) by Bharti Kher

Under this theme, she also makes use of the adornments used by women such as bindi and saree. Her saree work includes wall pieces, sculptures, and saree portraits. Her “saree portraits” shows the uniqueness of her art, transforming the objects to personify. The saree is an unstitched cloth, draped by women in the Indian subcontinent to cover their bodies. Through her saree portraits, Kher tries to express the memories and emotions of the persons who have worn this unstitched attire. She uses resin-dipped sarees, cement pillars, and some readymade objects like wooden staircases and chairs to make saree portraits. The most amazing thing about these portraits is that she moulds and folds the sarees in such a way that the portrait looks as if it has been transformed into a lively body. In an interview with “Open” magazine, she said,

The saree women came out of this idea of absence and presence of the body.” ^[12]Open

Solo Shows

• AIFACS, New Delhi, India (1993)

• Art Heritage, (cat), New Delhi, India (1995)

• Galerie F.I.A, Amsterdam, Netherlands (1997)

• “Telling Tails” in New Delhi, India and “Telling Tails,” Galerie F.I.A, Amsterdam, Netherlands (1999)

• “The Private Softness of Skin” at Bose Pacia Modern in New York (cat), USA (2000)

• “The Private Softness of Skin” at Gallery Chemould in Mumbai, India (2001)

• “Quasi-, mim-, ne-, near-, semi-, -ish, -like,” at Gallery Ske in Bangalore, India and “Hungry Dogs Eat Dirty Pudding” at Nature Morte in New Delhi, India (2004)

• “Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup,” at Gallery 88 and Ske Gallery in Mumbai, India (2006)

• “An absence of assignable cause” at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, U.S.A. and “An absence of assignable cause” at Nature Morte in New Delhi, India (2007)

• “Sing to them that will listen” at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris and “Virus” at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2008)

• “disturbia, utopia, house beautiful” at Gallery SKE in Bangalore, India and “Inevitable undeniable necessary” at Hauser & Wirth in London (2010)

• “Leave your smell” at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris (2011)

• “Many, (too) many, more than before” at Galerie Perrotin in Hong Kong, Bharti Kher, Parasol Unit Foundation for contemporary art, London, and “The hot winds that blow from the West” at Hauser & Wirth in New York (2012)

• “Anomalies” at Kukje Gallery in Seoul, Korea and “Bind the Dream State to your Waking Life” at Nature Morte in New Delhi, India (2013)

• “three decimal points. of a minute. of a second. of a degree” at Hauser & Wirth, Zurich and “Misdemeanors” at Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, China (2014)

• “Not All Who Wanders Are Lost” at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, USA (2015)

• “The Laws of Reversed Effort” at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, “This Breathing House” at Freud Museum in London, “BHARTI KHER Matter” at Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada, and “In Her Own Language” at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth, Australia (2016)

• “Bharti Kher: Sketchbooks and Diaries” at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, USA and “Dark Matter (MM)” at Museum Frieder Burda Salon Berlin, Germany (2017)

•  “Djinns, things, places” at Galerie Perrotin in Tokyo, Japan, “Messengers” at Grunwald Gallery of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, “Chimeras,” Pasquart Kunsthaus Centre d’art, Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, and “Points de départ, points qui lient,” at DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada (2018)

• “A wonderful anarchy” at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, Bruton, UK (2019)

• “A Consummate Joy” at IMMA in Dublin, Ireland and “The Unexpected Freedom of Chaos” at Galerie Perrotin in New York (2020)

• “Strange Attractors” at Nature Morte in New Delhi, India (2021)

• “Ancestor” at Public Art Fund, Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park, New York, USA (upcoming) (2022)

Group Shows

2021

•  Hub India: Classical Radical, Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino, Torino, Italy
  

2020

• Tantra: enlightenment to revolution, The British Museum, London, UK

• Relations (Diaspora and Painting), Fondation Phi, Montreal, Canada

• Contemporary Female Identities in the Global South, Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa

• 21st-Century Art from the Pizzuti Collection, Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, USA

• Résonance, Fondation Opale, Switzerland

• Animals in Art, Arken, Ishøj, Denmark

• Dhaka Art Summit: Seismic Movements, Bangladesh

• Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada, Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

2019

• Les arts du Tout-Monde, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Montréal, Canada- Driving Forces: Contemporary Art from the Collection of Ann and Ron Pizzuti, Columbus Museum of Art and Pizzuti Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, USA

• In the Company of Artists, 25 Years of Artists-In-Residence, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA

• Desire in Art, from the 20th Century to the Digital Age, IMMA, Dublin, Ireland

• Public Art Exhibition, Harvard Business School, Boston, USA

• La Lumière des Mondes, Domaine des Etangs, Massignac, France

• Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

• Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada, University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto, Canada

2018

• Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada, Art Gallery of Alberta – Alberta, Canada

• Facing India, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg – Wolfsburg, Germany

• Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300-Now), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

• My Monster: The Human Animal Hybrid, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

• I See You, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, USA

• Surface Work,  Victoria Miro, London, UK

• The Sculpture Park, Madhavendra Palace at Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur, India

• Bronze Age c.3500 BC-AD 2018, Firstsite, Colchester, England

2017

• Fond illusions, Perrotin, New York, USA

• Portable Art: A project by Celia Forner, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland

• Versus Rodin: Bodies across space and time, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

• Pizzuti Collection, Visions from India. Transforming Vision: 21st Century Art from the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus OH

• Salon, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland

• Sub-Plots: Laughing in the Vernacular, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, India

• Approaching Land, Akara Art Gallery, Mumbai, India

2016

• I Prefer Life, Weserburg, Bremen, Germany

• Present, Johyun Gallery, Busan, Korea

• The Future Is Already Here – It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed, 20th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

2015

• Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Collection, curated by Suhanya Raffel

• Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

• Don’t Shoot the Painter – UBS Art Collection, Villa Reale’s Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan, Italy

• Codes of Culture, SKE Gallery, New Dehli, India

2014

• Whorled Explorations, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India

• Girl – curated by Pharrel Williams, Galerie Perrotin, Paris

• Entre deux expositions. Collections et nouvelles acquisitions de l’Institut, Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez, Bordeaux, France

• Here Today…A major exhibition marking 50 years of the IUCN Red List, The Old Sorting Office, London

2013

• Textile – Fabric as Material and Concept in Modern Art from Klimt to the Present, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany

• Quartiers d’été, Collection de l’Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez, villa les Roches Brunes, Dinard, France

• Trade Routes, Hauser & Wirth, London, England

• We are Ours: A Collection of Manifestos for the Instant, Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi, India

• Art & Textiles – Fabric as Material and Concept in Modern Art from Klimt to the Present, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany

2012

• Misled by Nature: Contemporary Art and the Baroque, Art Gallery of Alberta, Canada (Travelling Exhibition)

• Dot. Systems. From Pointillism to Pixelation, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Germany

• La Belle & la Bête, Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez, Bordeaux, France

• India: Art Now, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Denmark

• The First Kyiv Biennale of Contemporary Art: The best of times, the worst of times. Rebirth and apocalypse in contemporary art’, Kyiv, Ukraine

• Critical Mass, Contemporary art from India, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel

2011

Awards, Honours, Achievements

• In 2003, Bharti Kher was presented with the Sanskriti Award.

• In 2007, she won the award for YFLO Women Achiever of the year.

• Bharti Kher won ARKEN Art Prize in 2010.

• She won the highest French cultural award, Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France), in 2015 for her contribution to the landscape of contemporary art, both in France and internationally.

Facts/Trivia