Surbhi has always had a romantic affection for textiles, especially found fabrics and old clothes, for their texture, their softness, the unseen threads, the hidden seams, the painstaking craftsmanship and their quiet lived history. She views it as a “living-breathing material”, a very self-assured, distinctive material and yet one that is amenable and versatile.
Her first use of textile was in 2016 when she collaborated with a tribal artist to turn a 100- year quilt into the Tree of Life table. She has since used textiles and fabrics in different works, notably in Mamman (After Louise) (2021) and the Water Dragon Table (2021). Following a quilting course in London at City Lit, she has adopted the material more seriously and worked upon a whole series of tapestries or wall sculptures/installations as she likes to think of them.
Surbhi is intrigued by the primitivism of the fabric and raw fibre, the so-called naïveté of patchwork, embroidery and quilting, traditionally associated with the Indian housewife and inherently feminine, personal, hand made, even domestic. Mixing these with the mass produced, factory bought clothes and fabrics, makes for an interesting juxtaposition. She uses old clothes mainly those of her childrens’, the most precious memory of their childhood to her. The works in some sense immortalise the clothes and their childhood, recontextualising them forever. However, presenting them in a public context, is a great dichotomy for Surbhi who is otherwise intensely protective of her children and their privacy.
The ever contentious in-between space, between private-public, high art-craft, old-new, factory bought-handmade, quietly pushing an open ended narrative is where Surbhi thrives.