Nandini Chirimar
New York, NY

Nandini Chirimar grew up in Jaipur, India and came to the USA in 1987 to study art. She completed her BFA in Drawing and Painting from Cornell University, a residency at Skowhegan School of Art, and an MFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She learned viscosity printing from Arun Bose and spent four years in Japan studying Japanese woodblock printing with Taika Kinoshita.

Nandini derives inspiration for her work from everyday life, personal history, maps, relationships and her roles as an Indian woman and mother living in America. Researching objects for their function and social significance is part of her process. These include household objects, toys, things in drawers, shelves, rooms and traditional and non-traditional objects. She explores their physical characteristics and what happens when they are taken out of context and repeated or combined. As an example, threads used in Indian marriage ceremonies could be joined together into an abstract composition using multiples of knots, or a drawing could contain thousands of minute seeds, spices, grains etc. She uses Japanese Kozo paper to make detailed drawings using pencil, watercolor and embroidery. In addition, she works with many printmaking techniques, like etching, aquatint and Indian/Japanese woodblock printing. Her drawings and prints are often layered, cut or sewn to become mixed media works. Sometimes they morph into sculptural pieces where physical objects become the focus, like bangles sewn on to drawings or objects collected in glass jars.

Nandini lives in New York City and has shown her work at many international venues, including Allen Projects, New York (solo exhibition); Ono Gallery, Tokyo; CWAJ Print Shows, Tokyo; Exhibit 320 Gallery, New Delhi; CIMA Gallery, Kolkata; AHAF Fair, Korea; SLICK II Fair, Paris; and in Erasing Borders Traveling Exhibitions.