BIOLOGY TEACHER
Image: Zygote. 2020. Sagarika Sundaram. 3ft x 5 ft (90 x 152cm). Wool. Commissioned by Ace Hotel Brooklyn. Courtesy of the artist.
Sagarika Sundaram’s expanded textile-based practice generates abstract, sculptural, and installation textile tapestries investigating the relationships between architecture, biology, and the psyche. Compressing hand-dyed, natural fibres into dense forms, she reinterprets traditional wool-felt into mutant and psychedelic pieces that engulf the viewer.
Sundaram’s work observes and abstracts natural phenomena to generate a distinctive power and presence.
Image: Fingerprint (2021). Sagarika Sundaram.144 x 60 in x 12 in (365 x 152 x 30cm). Wool. Exhibited at Mana Contemporary 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
2022 has been a good year for Sundaram. She exhibited at the Armory Show with Nature Morte gallery, and at the Frestonian Gallery, London, UK. She was also awarded The Hopper Prize, a Bronx Museum AIM Fellowship, and a residency at Art Omi.
Image: Unseers (Performance). Sagarika Sundaram. Mana Contemporary 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
This builds on her previous success when, in 2020, she received both the Tishman Award for Excellence in Climate, Environmental Justice & Sustainability, and the Michael Kalil Endowment for Smart Design.
Image: Oracle (2020). Sagarika Sundaram.6 ft x 7ft (182 x 213cm). Wool, botanical dye. Exhibited at Mana Contemporary 2020, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
Sundaram is an MFA in Textiles graduate of Parsons / The New School, in New York. She also studied at the National Institute of Design, in Ahmedabad, and at MICA, in Baltimore. She is Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt, and is based in New York.
On Wednesday 14 December 2022, Sundaram will be taking time out of her busy schedule to join SELVEDGE’s panel, discussing wool. Do join her.
Image: Power Diagram / Wool Brick (2020). Sagarika Sundaram.39 in x 42 in (100 x 106cm). Wool. Exhibited at Mana Contemporary, 2020, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.