Blindspot Gallery and PARADOX are pleased to present “Fragments of My Imagination” featuring British Indian artist Chila Kumari Burman. Following the exhibition shown in Singapore in September this year, the Hong Kong exhibition will feature a collection of 13 artworks including print and photographic artworks on paper and canvas that are uniquely embellished with gems, rhinestones and crystals, as well as intricate mixed media works composed entirely from bindis and stickers.

One of the few British Asian artists to exhibit internationally, Burman’s story is no ordinary one. Born to Punjabi immigrants who came to Britain to earn a decent living, Burman grew up in the back streets of Bootle in Liverpool. Although her father was a bespoke tailor, he could not find work and became an ice cream man to support his family. Chief influences in Burman’s art remain her family and Indian roots. One often finds images of ice cream, cornets, and lolly ices scattered throughout her beautiful works that seamlessly blend references to popular culture with family photos, Bollywood stars and Hindu gods.

Educated at the famous Slade School of Art, Burman has worked experimentally across print, paint, sculpture, photography and mixed media since the mid 1980’s. Drawing on fine and pop art imagery, she explores Asian femininity, her personal family history, and articulates a critical position within contemporary post-­‐colonial consumption saturated Britain.

In recent works such as Fortune and Perfect Fit, Burman explores issues of gender and race through the aesthetics of collecting. Playing with the formal properties of dress accessories, lingerie, bindis, bras, flowers, hair-­‐ pieces and jewelry, she works with repetition, pattern and allusions to the hyper-­‐feminine, the sexual and the everyday. Encompassing the idea of Arte Povera and recycled materials, Burman cleverly transforms these “worthless” materials that many consider cheap kitsch into a body of art worthy of serious contemplation.

In a similar fashion, the artist’s Bindi Girl series stems from her first use of bindis and unconventional “non-­‐artistic” materials (such as glitter, stickers and ice-­‐cream cones) when she was at Khoj in 1998.

About Chila Kumari Burman

Burman received her professional Fine Art and Graphic Design training at Leeds Polytechnic and later pursued her Master of Fine Art (Printmaking) at Slade School of Fine Art in London. Burman’s works are globally exhibited at major galleries and museums and comprise important public collections in the UK and abroad including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, The British Council in London, Arts Council England, Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom, as well as the Devi Foundation in New Delhi. Burman currently lives and works in London.