User:Sarikagoulatia

Sarika Goulatia

Sarika Goulatia www.sarika-goulatia.com or www.sarikagoulatia.comwas born in 1973 in Gorakhpur, India. In 2002 she moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she currently lives and works as an artist. Sarika graduated from the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University www.cmu.edu with honors and was presented the Sally Gehl Award for her outstanding performance as a Non traditional undergraduate student. She has a prior Undergraduate and Masters degree in Textiles. She was awarded the “student of the year” on graduating from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Delhi, India.

As a textile designer, she worked in rural India reviving dying techniques and textiles for the first few years of her career. Her quench for knowledge led her to go to England where she worked under Peter Collingwood a contemporary, innovative installation textile artist. This exposure inspired her to go back to art school and explore and experiment further with different newer mediums; techniques and styles; and adapt them as a means to express her emotions. Goulatia approaches her art practice from a 3-D sculptural perspective.

In the realm of painting, she works with both conventional and unconventional materials to express her beliefs and ideas. The act of applying color for her is interchangeable with hammering nails, drilling holes and building layers and often incorporating recycled material. Goulatia’s work is often defined by the emotions she feels and wants to evoke. Her work entwines her own personal emotions as if she is passionately invested in the events. Her subject matter is extensively researched and inspired by historical events, landmarks and the indomitable human spirit.

The essence of the people of Mumbai inspired Goulatia to produce her work "Mappings." In "Mappings" the hammering of the nails is a profound almost devilish, repetitive, viscous action in conjunction with the ceaseless, unthinkable bombings and killings wrought by terrorists on 11/26/2009 in Mumbai, India.

"Topsy Turvy" touches on the idea of the distorted perception of the world through the eyes of the bystander. The critique of ideology, the rejection of moralism, misgiving toward ceremonial institutions, and the liberatory supremacy of individual aspiration motivated this work.

In some of Goulatia’s works such as "Clean Slate" recognizable forms from nature fuse with the abstract in the hope of provoking a poetic sense of visual abundance that is simultaneously unsettling, surreal, and provocative. The idea behind a slate being clean is a pun. The marks made, even though erasable, are always visible just, as in life. The past always foreshadows the present and the future. No actions are ever erasable and no word spoken can ever be taken back.

On a personal level, Goulatia lost her father to Lou Gehrig's disease and the experience developed within her a fascination with the juxtaposition of the frailty of the human body and the strength of the human mind. These are concepts that constantly influence her artistic endeavors.

She has exhibited her works nationally at the Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh Center of Arts, The Space Gallery, The Mine Factory, The Manchester Craftsmen Guild, The Miller Gallery and at Zora Art Space, Brooklyn. In 2007, she was one of the 5 Indian artists chosen from around the country to exhibit in Double Consciousness at the Mattress Factory Museum.