Kirtika Kain

Kirtika Kain was born New Delhi, India (1990), and lives and works on Gadigal Country at Warrang/Sydney, New South Wales.

An artist and educator working on Dharug land, Kain combines elements of sculpture, experimental printmaking and painting. Kain’s practice draws from her Dalit lineage and investigates material histories, ancestral memory and the complexities of race and caste in the diaspora. Her work is influenced by the legacy of anti-caste literature and song.

Kain’s labour-intensive studio practice engages ancient materials of ritual and labour (pigments, waxes, cotton, grains, gold, copper, tar and hessian), reclaiming their traditional religiosity and challenging notions of purity, sanctity and stigma. Her abstract works act as archaeological vestiges, reflecting on the unarchived body and the vast multiplicity of Dalit experiences across time and geography.

Tar and gold are substances associated with hard labour for the Dalit communities, who were relegated to the base of the Hindu caste system. Free from class constraints in her studio, Kain transforms these symbolically charged materials into abstract colour field paintings. As monumental works, they occupy the viewer’s field of vision. The use of thin, cracking gold leaf draws attention to the surface details. The weight of the tar drags on the hessian support, imparting a worldly gravity to this abstract work of art.