GAURI TORDALKAR
From my gilded window I Kissing Point
Gauri Torgalkar is a visual artist of Indian origin based in Ryde on Wallumedegal land, re-imagining the Australian landscape as altered through the lens of personal memory and inspired by narratives including Indian textiles, folklore & miniature painting. As an artist who has relocated several
times (India, USA & Australia), her practice explores the intrinsic need of immigrants to make cultural associations in new communities.
All throughout Gauri’s education and work for twenty years in architecture and urban design, drawing has always been a part of her practice. In drawings depicting the urban environment she was able to developed a distinctive style, but there was never any room for indication of her culture in it. Ten years ago when she started pursuing a career as a professional artist, incorporation of her Indian culture, her background and her story into the art practice was of vital importance; an attempt to
fill that India-shaped hole in Gauri’s he(art), one
artwork at a time.
Gauri is fascinated by older systems of colour, pattern and ornamentation and their overlap between cultures, giving us a language that can be simultaneously local and universal. Her work incorporates the use of multiple layers of stained background overlaid with mark-making often overlaid with simplified patterns towards understanding a complex landscape. While traditional Indian aesthetic guides her art, the subject is essentially Australian. Her practice investigates
this notion of identity as stories, rituals and cultural experiences of hyphenated identities in Australia.
Gauri’s work aims to bring her Indian aesthetic into the Australian contemporary art conversation and challenge perceptions of this land and its complex cultural narratives. Her project ‘Diwali Bloom’ won the Create NSW Small Projects Grant in 2021, and her artworks have been shown in several prestigious exhibitions in Sydney including the Greenway Art Prize (which she won in 2015), Adelaide Perry Prize,
Blacktown Art Prize, and overseas at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, USA. Her work is held in public and private collections in Australia, India and the United States, including commissioned artworks for health institutions in Western Sydney.