Dec 2023 | Mosman Art Gallery Program Annoucement 2024
Nov 2023 | Artist Profile article
“During my visit to Kirtika Kain’s home and studio in Parramatta, it was apparent that she and her artworks were in a state of co-habitation. Her artistic practice envelops her apartment; canvases lean against walls, and splashes of paint, ink and gold leaf temporarily stain the tiled floors. The process of creating this mess holds as much weight as the final amorphous works on canvas - all of which allude to her experiences of belonging to the Indian Dalit caste in the diaspora.” Written by Nikita Holcomb
Nov 2023 | OzAsia Festival
Participation in The Idea of India panel, moderated by Dr. Mridula Nath Chakraborty
Nov 2023 | Art Guide profile
“Kirtika Kain’s Western Sydney apartment on Dharug Country is crowded with boxes of materials and new canvases. She came back from a three-month residency in Italy in November 2022 and since then she’s been living alongside her work, preparing for her solo exhibition Blue Bloods at Roslyn Oxley9 and for the Biennale of Sydney next year. The cohabitation has been intense and sometimes messy, but Kain says studio life is teaching her new confidence.” Written by Jane O’Sullivan
Nov 2023 | Blue Bloods, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery
Blue Bloods is a constellation of new material paintings that reflect on the unseen colour and vibrancy of Dalit history. Paying tribute to the colour of Dalit resistance, Blue Bloods is an imagining of the grandeur of an ancient history that has not been valued or archived, but has been absorbed and witnessed by the body, the earth and the cosmos.
Nov 2023 | Art Collector Magazine profile
“Avoiding an aesthetic driven by victimhood, Kirtika Kain’s painterly approach to the identity of caste, which continues to be dehumanised as untouchables, is an exciting explosion of joy, warmth and opulence.” Written by Judith Blackall
July 2023 | ANNOUNCEMENT Selected as exhibiting artist in 24th Biennale of Sydney
Sydney, Australia: The Biennale of Sydney has today announced the curatorial vision and first 39 artists for the 24th edition, titled Ten Thousand Suns. This major international contemporary art festival will be open to the public from 9 March to 10 June 2024, presented in various locations across Sydney.
May 2023 | 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
Focusing on the experiences of diaspora and children of immigrants in navigating complex issues of personal and socio-cultural in so-called Australia, the panellists will examine how individual experiences and actions can affect cultural, familial, and local senses of place, addressing themes of ingrained racial, religious, and caste segregation across Asia and Australia.
April 2023 | Okkoota ಒಕ್ಕೂಟ
A staggering roster of local and international artists draw on a huge range of artforms and activities to imagine what an institution of historical significance can offer its community in the contemporary present.
December 2022 | Bamako Encounters - African Biennale of Photography, 13th Edition
‘Maa ka Maaya ka ca a yere kono—On Multiplicity, Difference, Becoming and Heritage’, this edition is an invitation to reflect collectively on these multiplicities of being and differences, to go beyond the notion to be unique and to embrace composite, layered fragmented identities, complex and non-linear understandings of space and time.’’
November 2022 | Empty Pockets, Gertrude Glasshouse
The narrative of migrant labour identifies Australia within the image of the land of hope and dreams. Melbourne, with its deep connection to the history of Australia’s labour movement, is an ideal location from which to reflect on labour tied to waves of migration historically and currently.
October 2022 | Wake Up Call for My Ancestors is a long-term, critical artistic-archival project that gives an active voice to Dalit and other archived subaltern subjects—appropriated, exhibited, made accessible, edited, and disseminated as mere photographs. Berlin-based artist Sajan Mani has initiated an interdisciplinary dialogue about the collection of South Indian photographs in the Ethnological Museum Berlin, to which he has invited three artists and three scholars to critically question Eurocentric archiving practices.
May 2022 | The Lunar Line, Jhaveri Contemporary online Viewing Room
April 2022 | Amant Studio & Research Residency Siena Recipient
The Studio & Research Residency Siena is designed for professionals in the arts and the humanities at all career stages and working in different media. Residencies run for three months and residents are selected through a nomination process once a year.
April 2022 | Earth 200 CE
Two artists, one shared history. Showcasing a six-month collaboration between Berlin-based artist Sajan Mani and Sydney-based artist Kirtika Kain, Earth 200 CE presents their shared experience of being Dalit, through vastly different mediums.
Oct 2021 | LOOKING AT PAINTING features artists that push the boundaries of the canvas. It features a mix of emerging, mid-career and established artists who work with painting and experiment with the medium through approaches to collaboration, material, process and installation.
Sept 2021 | (re)arrangements, Grace Cossington Smith Gallery Sydney
Rearrange, repurpose, reuse, recycle and reinterpret photographic imagery, freely adapting the material and media available from a myriad of sources.
April 2021 | Lustration, Firstdraft Sydney
Lustration (from Latin lustratio, “purification by sacrifice”), features a large-scale silkscreened drawing developed on site over a week-long period. This exhibition attempts to reclaim a sanctified space and challenge antiquated notions of purity and pollution.
July 2020 | Selected as finalist in the 2020 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging), part of a suite of Create NSW Creative Leadership and Fellowship programs
July 2020 | Interview with Hong-Kong based COBO Social.
July 2020 | Selected for Close Encounters, The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre. Artworks have been selected by the public from the Blacktown City Art Collection.
Mar 2020 | Art Aid Gippsland raises $160,000 for Gippsland Emergency Relief Fund
Feb 2020 | HOME Bushfire Relief Art Auction Fundraiser raises $222,000 for Climate Council, Firesticks Alliance and WWF-Australia.
Jan 2020 | Interview with Print Council of Australia Imprint Magazine for uppercase, Gallery Lane Cove
Dec 2019 | Interview with Sydney-based printmaking collective More than Reproduction
Nov 2019 | Selected as Parramatta Artist Studios 2020, with Akil Ahamat, Tully Arnot, Cindy Yuen-Zhe Chen, Liam Colgan, Dacchi Dang, Kalanjay Dhir, Sabella D’Souza, Gillian Kayrooz, Shivanjani Lal, Sarah Rodigari, Sofiyah Ruqayah, Yana Taylor, Justine Youssef
Oct 2019 | 4A A4 “Challenging local and international, emerging and established artists to create works of A4 size, 4A’s new and existing networks will come together to support the institution.”
July 2019 | Review by John McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald
Jun 2019 | Interview for Life at British School at Rome blog
May 2019 | Spazi Aperti 2019, Accademia di Romania in Rome with BSR artists Jonathan Kim, Jade Ching-yuk Ng, Karin Ruggaber
“In Issue 46, Indian-born Sydney-based artist Kirtika Kain wrote about her practice, which examines how oppressive social hierarchies and power structures have been enforced upon and embodied by generations before her, from the perspective of an outsider.”