Kirtika Kain on measuring the sacred

Delhi-born, Sydney-based artist, Kirtika Kain examines caste and patriarchal structures that have been enforced upon and embodied by generations before her. Drawing influence from Dalit literature and historical archives, Kain incorporates a myriad of materials that relate to themes of valuation, corporeality, ritual, and tools of manual labour, including brooms, religious pigments, rope, tar and leather. Through diverse alchemical and experimental printmaking processes, Kain attempts to transform and reclaim these everyday materials into aesthetic objects of value; thus, re-defining and re-imagining a personal and collective narrative.

Kain was awarded the Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award and Hornsby Art Prize (Printmaking) in 2017. As the recipient of the Bird Holcomb MFA Scholarship, she graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts at National Art School in 2018. In 2019, she completed consecutive studio residencies in New Delhi, supported by Art Incubator and the Dyason Bequest, and at the British School at Rome. She was recently a finalist in the 2020 Create NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship at Artspace and is currently a resident of the Parramatta Artist Studios program.

This conversation took place in March 2021 on the occasion of Kirtika Kain’s Firstdraft exhibition Lustration.

Interview by Hannah Jenkins, Co-Director, Firstdraft, 2020–21.

Kirtika Kain. Photo: Jeff Liu. Courtesy CJ Picture.

“The social background of this act is that as a woman born into the Untouchable caste, my body has been historically denied access to temples, but as an artist I can contend that, I can create my own sanctified space.”

Hannah Jenkins: Walking into the gallery space is in fact walking directly into the centre of your work. How did you go about mapping out this space and creating the work on site?

Kirtika Kain: I did exactly that; I walked in the centre and started creating outward. I came in with one idea: to map out a temple site. The social background of this act is that as a woman born into the Untouchable caste, my body has been historically denied access to temples, but as an artist I can contend that, I can create my own sanctified space. I also knew I wanted to screen print with sindoor pigment. Beyond this, the work evolved in seven days— I did not know how or what I was going to do until I did it.

Kirtika Kain, Lustration, 2021, screen-printed sindoor pigment, Lascaux paste,, glue, hand-painted stencils, dimensions variable, installation view, Firstdraft, Sydney. Photo: Zan Wimberley. Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. — Kirtika Kain, *Lustration*, 2021, screen-printed sindoor pigment, Lascaux paste,, glue, hand-painted stencils, dimensions variable, installation view, Firstdraft, Sydney. Photo: Zan Wimberley. Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.

“These are sacred images and yet I challenge how Hinduism can propagate divisive systems like caste, so I was fairly irreverent.”

HJ: What is the process of using your body to map proportions like? How did you go about this process/method?

KK: I think a process like that could be stupidly contrived so I forwent any idea of how I should do it and just got myself in the space. I lay on the floor, I stood against the walls to discover the measurements of where things felt right, I used my intuition of where the pigment needed to be bold and where only hints and traces were sufficient. I came in with a lot of fear because I wanted it to be right, the first few days was just getting over what it should be and engaging with what it was.

HJ: The colour of the pigments is spectacular and the designs you have silkscreened are at once intricate and bold. Can you tell me more about the significance of these designs and colours?

KK: These designs come from ancient ritual diagrams, maps and charts from Hinduism that I found in history textbooks. Very little was premeditated, including the choice of charts. I printed them A0 scale and cut them up on the second and third day of install and the entire gallery was a mess! These are sacred images and yet I challenge how Hinduism can propagate divisive systems like caste, so I was fairly irreverent. In hindsight, I’ve selected parts that seem to reflect a more universal iconography. The pigment is called sindoor and it is commonly used in rituals and worn my Hindu women to signify they are married. It is the most emotionally intense material I have worked with because it reminds me of my Hindu upbringing.

HJ: Lustration is an expansion of themes and practices you have been working with before. What have you discovered or learnt in this installation process?

KK: I’ve learned how I engage in space and how space exists in me. Everything in galleries and museums feels so measured, and I liked entering and deciding on that space, making it my own and determining those measurements for myself. I’m often reticent in spaces and the installation has encouraged me to question and challenge why that is. It was also a huge lesson in trusting. There were so many issues with the silkscreens, I was facing my own expectations and yet, as always, it comes together.

“I’ve learned how I engage in space and how space exists in me.”

HJ: How has the theme of reclamation (of bodies, of spaces, of histories) evolved or developed in your work over time?

KK: I feel emboldened by doing this show, mostly because as I said, I trusted what happened in seven days and that gave me confidence. I think reclamation is an act that is personal. I’m sure what I am doing can be read as reclaiming religious iconography as a Dalit woman etc etc. and that is very significant but for me personally, I feel reclamation when I play in a space, when I cut and collage, when I screen print. All of these acts I feel active in creating something that has not existed, and that is reclamation for me.

“I think reclamation is an act that is personal.”

HJ: Why did you become an artist?

KK: I don’t recall ever making that decision, it feels like one of those things that was decided. I never wanted to be an artist as a child, I liked to decorate my assignments and colour in the borders but that was it. I never studied art in high school and it was never a dream of mine. I think I'm the unintentional artist, being an artist is an excuse for me to do all the things I love – research, writing, playing, talking and collaborating. It doesn’t feel like something I do, it’s who I am. It fits my quirks and the obsession I feel for certain materials, like tar, gold, wax and sindoor!

“being an artist is an excuse for me to do all the things I love – research, writing, playing, talking and collaborating. ”

HJ: Who or what are you listening to, watching, reading? How do you stay connected – or how do you disconnect – in these times?

KK: I’m listening to way too much Beyoncé than I care to admit. I’m loving her visual album Black is King because I wait for the day that Dalits have a platform to make such visually stunning music and art. I’m taking a break from watching and attempting to read caste related books. I stay connected by following the flow – if that means headlines, dropping in on conversations, social media etc. I am connected to my artist community and becoming more connected to an online Dalit community. I disconnect by doing the opposite, I step back a bit and don't try so hard to be updated.

HJ: Do you have a favourite or particularly memorable exhibition that you saw at Firstdraft, and why?

KK: Susan Hawkins is killing it next door, I'm so chuffed to be showing with her. She's a quiet genius. When we were installing I could see her working and keeping it cool. Little did I know she was working on a masterpiece!

HJ: How has the last 12 months been for you? How has your lifestyle and artmaking been affected by 2020?

KK: I feel my life has changed. Everyone in Australia is blessed that we have not experienced COVID in the way I hear from my family overseas. There are parts of the world where its more likely than not to get it. During lockdown, I lived with my mother and to protect her health, I was always at home. I went into a fairly intense period of making work and I stayed busy. I think somewhere deep in our psyche there has been a seismic tremor and we are all recalibrating; we see the same ground but it has shifted. I feel the urgency of what we are doing and our contribution to the world is ever so important.

HJ: Where to next? What projects and plans do you have for the immediate and longer future?

KK: I have a show upcoming at Verge Gallery in September and my main focus is a new and substantial body of work. I am thinking of themes of colonialism and religion in caste and my new material palette includes calf skin, copper and gold – so watch this space!

Kirtika Kain, studio. Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.

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