Latest Shape collaboration: kARTa was shortlisted for the 2023 Emergent bursary with Baltic and Shape Arts.

Artist statement: kARTa works predominantly with clay, but also uses other media, including photography.

Her thematic explorations include verticality and horizontality as metaphors for states of wakefulness/sleep, function/dysfunction, presence/oblivion, health/sickness and the in-between state of not being fully alive nor dead.

In 2021, she was a resident with the Centre for the Study of Substructured Loss. She is part of the Bethlem Gallery Artists Collective and a recent graduate of UAL Central St Martins.

Still from 'Quiescence' by kARTa Kaur (ongoing)

“When using clay, I literally build and re-build myself through my actions with the material and make something of more substance, resilience, and permanence than myself. For me making is a process of construction and self-deconstruction, that makes visible what cannot be explained in words.

My energy is scarce, but I use my limitations as a framework and rhythm that allows me to work, constantly pacing and adjusting what I do. Hence every gesture with the material, the tools, and the related conversations, absolutely count and are carefully considered and enacted. This approach allows me to relax in a creative flow rather than labour against constraints, and regard what I am making as continually in evolution while at the same time finished at every stage”.

Follow kARTa on Instagram

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Banner Image: Courtesy of the artist. Image description: A landscape photo of a small large clay figure sleeping on a surface wrapped in a red single bed-sized blanket. Behind the figure is a blown up photograph of another bed, draped with stone coloured sheets.