Bharti Kher was born in the United Kingdom in 1969. She studied painting, graduating in 1991 from Newcastle Polytechnic. At 23, she moved to New Delhi in India, where she lives and works today.
Read MoreHer work encompasses painting, sculpture and installation, often incorporating found materials, using them to transform objects and dissolve the distinction between two and three dimensions. Sculptures she has made since the mid-2000s combine animal with human body parts to create hybrid female figures that confront the viewer with a compelling mixture of sexuality and monstrosity. In contrast, her bindi ‘paintings’ are abstract and aesthetic, turning the mass-produced consumerist items into artworks of sumptuous beauty. Her work is engaged with the ready-made, minimalism and abstraction (through repetition), mythology and narratives.
Solo exhibitions include Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, In Her Own Language, Perth, Australia (2016); Rockbund Art Museum, Misdemeanours, Shanghai, China (2014); Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London (2012) and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Virus, Gateshead, England (2008).
She has taken part in numerous group exhibitions at various institutions including Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Villa Reale’s Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan, Italy; Kochi Biennale Foundation, Kochi, India; L’Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez, Bourdeaux, France; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi, India; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto; Arken Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland; Manchester Art Gallery, England; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Australia; Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway; Essl Museum, Austria; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; The New Art Gallery Walsall, England; Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut; Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Serpentine Gallery, London.
