Sharmistha Kar
Sharmistha Kar is an artist from India and currently living in London, Ontario. She did her MFA from Western University, focusing on hand embroidery. Kar’s early education began in West Bengal, India and higher education in Fine arts at the University of Hyderabad. She was at Space studio, returning to Hyderabad in 2012 to join IIIT as a lecturer. She was awarded with the Charles Wallace India Trust Award, 2013, Dean’s and Chair’s Entrance Scholarships at Western in 2016, and Graduate Thesis research Award in 2018. She had. She had exhibited in India, UK, the USA, Finland and in Canada.
The exquisitely complex work of Sharmistha Kar, employs traditional and contemporary adaptations of embroidery to explore mapping, migration and identity. Fabric from thrift stores addresses her interest in including the touch of local people within her projects. A sense of temporary presence was an important thought for her due to personal travel experiences. The tent therefore became a key image for her, as well as an architectural form. Using the geometric form of a parallelogram to represent the roof of the tent was vital for Kar, in different compositions on paper and tarpaulins.
