Vidya Kamat

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Born in Mumbai, Vidya Kamat has acquired her Bachelors in Fine Art from the University of Mumbai in 1983. In 1999 the University of Mumbai awarded her a doctoral degree for her thesis-‘Myths and Symbols in pictorial expressions as seen from Sanskrit and Allied Literature’. Her works have been exhibited at various national and international exhibitions including Bologna Art Fair 09 with The Guild, Synonymous, curated by Shubhalakshmi Shukhla, The Guild, Mumbai 2008; Tales from the Edge, The Guild Art USA Inc, New York2007; Re-write, The Guild Mumbai 2005 and The Catalogue, The Guild Mumbai, 2003.

Her engagement with physicality and mortality of the human body began while she was working as a museum curator of the Anatomy section of Goa medical college, Goa, during 1987-88. After shifting to Bombay in 1990 she worked as an editorial illustrator for some of the leading publishing houses in Mumbai, including The Times of India and the Indian Express. For the past twelve years she has been a visiting faculty at the University Dept of Sanskrit, Mumbai, for Comparative Mythology. She has presented a number of academic papers at national seminars and has several research publications to her credit. In 2003, the University of Mumbai had recognized her as an advisor for PhD degree in Sanskrit. Recently she has been awarded Majlis, cultural research fellowship funded through HIVOS, Netherlands, for the project documenting roadside shrines in Mumbai- A Study.

“My basic concern revolves around the inter-relationship of self, nation and civilization, linked through the construction of myth, memory and history. I approach memory as a body, a cultural construct that is informed by the notions of pleasure and pain. Using the artists own body, as a metaphor to inscribe cultural writings, that inflict personal and public fears and violence to generate a memory that blurs myth and history.

I begin my work with the photograph as a point of entry into a real/ historical event which could be a specific memory of a person or the observer / photographer. By closely interacting with the subject/ person in the photograph I encourage re-collection of the depicted event as well as observations from the present position, eventually layering and converting the photograph into a mythic or Quasi-historic document with the help of image processing. In that sense, the photograph is never a still image but an active field of unpredictable references where history is constantly refreshed through the active engagement of memory. A photograph for me is a palimpsest rather an accurate record. I therefore overlap/ blend/ burn/warp to corrupt an image to present possible narratives that could also be alternative history.” – Vidya Kamat.

“Kamat is neither an ethnic artist stuck in the box of anthropology-as-art, nor is she blasé secularist, a cosmopolitan artist distancing herself from the past and personal; struggles: she does not abolish the sacred to attain the secular, but instead extends herself through symbolic performances that gauge the density and mobility of her individuation. For these works are nothing less than wagers of a difficult process of individuation. I would content that Kamat is working towards personhood that can be achieved only through shifting performance in the course of which she assumes several personae. She is trying slowly to individuate herself, from the crisis of loss of faith in herself, the lack of trust in loved ones, the sense of being orphaned and disinherited from the realm of affection” – Nancy Adjania.

The artist lives and works in Mumbai.