Artist Statement
Home. Lingering smells of tadka simmering on a hot stove, ready to be poured over my favourite daal. My face held in my Nan’s hands as her fingers feed me my favourite Punjabi food, moulded into bitesizes from her palm. Stories I absorbed, of parallel lives in Dar-Es-Salaam. Makeshift translations from Swahili to Punjabi to English. Redactions, mistakes, lacking comprehension. Filling these gaps in with sensory experience instead. Watching Deal or No Deal with my Nana, who wore his turban proudly everyday, whilst eating digestive biscuits and Kipling apple pies. Static murmurings of Al-Jazeera peppered the nightly dramas of Emmerdale. My being defined by these odds: my plaited hair and Kara I wore on my wrist as equal to my identity as not being able to pronounce my name.
I know I am here, but what is my anchor?
My paintings are engulfed by an essence of searching. A simultaneous feeling of alienation/belonging. I am a product of many places and stories. My ears have been open to hearing them all, but my heart has yet to feel at home. ‘Where are you from?’ Truth be told, I’m not sure I know.
This club of identity that exists, I’ve never felt I’ve been permitted.
Thin red frames are appropriated from Indian Miniatures, an acknowledgment of the perimeters of my identity. I grasp onto the little I know and playfully use materials which remind me of my Punjabi roots. Henna powder, gold leaf and nails are layered and sealed onto surfaces, hidden and sinking under the weight of heavy, ever-lasting glazes. So long ago did my family’s story end there that these materials struggle to take centre stage. They’re challenged by their Western counterparts and traditional paints and pigments tend to dominate the surface. An unusual opposition, there is no clear winner.
Though, there are hopeful glimpses. Invitations are open to make this place ours, in this present moment. I give respect to my Dad’s carpentry background, Sikh upbringing and memories of sitting cross-legged on the floor at the Gurdwara by encouraging you to bend and look at the work closer to the ground. I am at home here, in this world of contradictions and, I hope you are too. It seems the opposition ends when a linguistic motif is introduced. Though, the irony exists even here. The Punjabi symbol of ‘I’; my suggestion of self. It has been repeatedly altered and skewed, until it is rendered meaningless. Abstraction is my means to truth.
I hand you my honesty and secrecy, to view as you wish. I have no double meaning, no reluctance to attach myself to any place that people tell me I’m from but, at the same time, my struggle to accept that has become the making of my work.
Kitty Gahir. 2024.
