I’m a multi-disciplinary visual artist exploring environmental ecologies, preservation and consciousness. My practice spans across sculpture, installation, drawing and painting.

It is impossible to ignore mankind’s role as a major geological force, one whose impact we have not yet fully fathomed. I approach cities as forests-turned wastelands and landscapes with distorted eco-systems. My practice draws attention to these environments that I find myself in – settings constantly in flux – both geographic and anthropogenic. Abandoned, overgrown and untamed environments inspire me. Natural chaos is beautiful, but with increasing urbanization, we are progressively losing our natural environs to cement and steel. My work is a testament to this loss and disappearance of thousands of species of plants and trees capturing a botanical melancholy of degeneration and struggle, absence and presence. My practice finds me flirting with fragility and permanence - using material from both nature and civilization. Found objects -both organic and inorganic, are cast with substances they would not normally interact with. I like to incorporate my sensibility as a painter to bring life to my sculptures I create. Whatever the material, or the distortion or hybridization forced on it, in the end my works ask a simple question – “Who would win if Nature starts to fight back?” and the answer to that is a quick – “Not us”.

I consider observation and personal experience to be a conceptual practice that underwrites my visual art while channeling a legacy of radical environmental commentaries into the practices of my work. Taking nature and it’s elements, my pieces comprise multiple components, taking the form of sculptural as well as serial arrangements that we could compare to nature’s chords in the melody of the existence of trees all over the world.

BIOGRAPHY

Radhika Agarwala completed her MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, London (2011), MFA in Painting from School of Fine Art, University of Florida (2010) and Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2008). She also studied at Rabindra Bharati University, Faculty Of Visual Arts, Kolkata and completed her BFA in Painting (2007). She lived and worked in London until 2014.

Her works have been exhibited for Art Dubai at Latitude 28 booth (2022), 'When The Other Stares Back', curated by Adwait Singh at Kaee Contemporary, Kolkata (2022), 'Memory Leaves', Curated by Uma Nair at Art Exposure, Kolkata (2022), ‘All The Days and Nights’ at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2020), with Latitude 28 at Delhi Contemporary Art Week (2021-2017), India Art Fair (2023-2022,2019 -2018); ‘Babur ki Gai’ (2018) and ‘G/rove’ (2017), 'Participate', Asians Arts Initiative (2014). Solo exhibits include 'For Two Lovers' (2013) & 'Encounter' (2012) at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London. Artist residencies include Atelierhaus Salzamt, Austria & Casa Dell'Arte, Turkey (2013). She has participated in the Saatchi Gallery Auction, London (2012) and was shortlisted for the 100 Painters of Tomorrow, by Kurt Beers, Cecily Brown & Jack Klein and Threadneedle Prize for Painting and Sculpture, UK (2013), Annual Scholarship from University OF Florida School of Art + Art History, U.S.A and Merit Scholarship from School of The Art Institute of Chicago.