Neeta Madahar statement | biography | links + press
born London, 1966
Neeta Madahar received her MFA from the Museum School at the Boston Museum
of Fine Arts in 2003. As a British citizen of Indian descent who has lived
and worked in the U.S., Madahar constantly refers to themes of migration
and transition throughout her work.
Madahar's thesis project entitled Sustenance gained immediate interest and
was shown at the Arles Festival curated by Martin Parr in 2005, followed
by shows in Boston, London, and Germany. In this project, Madahar examines
the complexities of the domestic environment through her exploration of
the various bird species that gather to feed at her home in Framingham,
Massachusetts. Using a large-format camera, Madahar juxtaposes contrasting
ideas of familiarity and strangeness, belonging and migration, and prolonged
routine and repetition.
Madahar continues to work with nature in her second project Falling (2005),
tapping into associations with childhood and dreamlike states of the imagination
as she documents the each stage of the flight and landing of a sycamore
leaf.
In her next series, Cosmoses (2005-2007), Madahar built on several ideas
explored in Sustenance and Falling, investigating the ambiguity between
what is real or found as opposed to what is constructed as she emphasized
the interplay between repetition and chance and the transformational journeys
of nature and time. The series consists of large-scale photograms of origami
cosmos flowers. In her current project, Flora, Madahar portrays various
women enveloped in flower arrangements, creating an empowering satire of
the patriarchal associations of nature with femininity.
Cosmoses 2005-2007 [view
images]
Falling 2005 [view
images]
Sustenance 2003 [view
images]