PRESS
Exhibitions
The Piercing Needle, 2016
“Gopika Nath is an artist whose perspective sits comfortably within the concepts and ideals of the contemporary art world. However, she is also an artist whose perspective sits just as comfortably within the rituals and practices of the traditional world. She is one of those rare artists that can embrace the understanding that is the foundation of both worlds. She can take the concept of tradition, redefine it, and then allow it to embrace the contemporary world…” Read full review
— John Hopper, Inspirational magazine
“…..the artist is at her best toying with a variety of effects n digitally manipulated photographs of left over tea inside cups altered with printed images and stitchery, detached from textual excerpts – poems; dialogues; thoughts……..hint at unlimited possibilities that the mind can conceive of….” Read full review
— Oindrilla Maity Surai, Take on Art Magazine
“Nath’s practice is also evocative of how women over centuries must have engaged with the craft, as an intimate exercise of engaging with one’s deepest self when self-expression, as we know it today, was denied to most of them. Working the needle in and out of a piece of cloth must have been so cathartic, liberating and fortifying. No wonder, embroidery and stitching have often been used to express some of the strongest issues such as gender politics.” Read full review
— Archana Khare-Ghose, Blouin Art Info
“Gopika has re-contextualised the notions on stitching as an art. Deeply autobiographical, her technique is the use of cross-stitch and running stitch (Kantha) to add texture to the fabric stained with tea.” Read full review
— Ina Puri, Rail Bandhu
“…as you look closely, you realise that beyond the amber-coloured stains and the haphazard sutures on the fabric, there is a creative process at work that is deeply contemplative and is carefully executed….In these works, the two separate acts – staining and stitching – acquire specific meaning. The act of spilling tea, an unconscious exercise, is turned into a conscious, artistic process…..” Read full review
— Ratnabir Guha, The Telegraph
“In her re-contextualisation of stitching as contemporary art, Nath uses photography and digital painting on fabric alongside burning, shredding and embroidering. The result is a layered and poignantly evocative oeuvre, consisting of slightly melancholic yet cozily graceful compositions….” Read full review
— Michele Chan, Art Radar
“…..Gopika Nath has stitched together a new concept. She has deconstructed traditional stitches to create her own stitch vocabulary…..” Read full review
— Times of India
Fragments and Fragmentation, 2015
“Nath, a textile artist and writer, is rather candid in her evocations…..This cloth based series is marked by the recurring motif of the circular form, inspired by the ‘lowly’ tea-cup…… read as wounds unravelling the various layers of self……by documenting her process and sharing its complexity Nath questions the stereotype.” Read full review
— Georgina Maddox, Art India Magazine
“It’s fascinating to look at the little labels that accompany Nath’s artwork, the ones that usually carry the title, date, medium and method used by the artist. The “technique” outlined next to a typical piece by her would go thus: “layering, tearing, pulling, stitching, staining with tea-leaves”; or “burning, machine embroidery, staining with tea-leaves”. This alone adds to the appeal of the showcased pieces, some of them sounding not unlike a short poem by William Carlos Williams.” Read full review
— Vineet Gill, The Sunday Guardian
Drawn with Thread, 2009
“In the exhibition “Drawn with Thread’, she presents delicate, materially ephemeral works not unlike the spider’s splendid web. These authentically creative works are not the bare sum of their sights and sounds, but also their pains. In adding this, they find relation with their universe and sing in unison…….For this artist the humble is the extraordinary. But we will see it truly only if we have the requisite eyes, because this creativity registers what really happens when we undergo affecting experiences. As though from leaves of grass, as by stocking up on their likes; Gopika Nath stirs pre-conscious memories in patterns on fabric.”
— Keshav Malik, Art and Deal Magazine
“Nath drew on resources of the craft-based art practices – she used mixed media and employed the delicately stitched line to explore existential experiences of lasting value. By sensitively choosing fabric and threads she created honest but subtle textural interactions. Nath used lines that were harshly minimalist, proving that a disorderly world can sometimes be effectively probed using stark means.”
— Ina Puri, Art India Magazine
Confluence ‘99
“Gopika Nath endeavours to gently infuse fresh life in the famed textiles of the land, to help out the creative but mute oral India, threatened by demonic industrial forces.”
— Chandni Nair, The Indian Express
“In what can be described as powerfully creative, Nath has created an ambience of a Dhobi Ghat…… these bright hand-painted scarves and dupattas reflect a strange rebellion of an artist with their free-flowing designs and colour combinations.”
— Navneet Kaur, The Indian Express
Textile Dilemmas – to be Worn or to be Hung, 1997
“We have a darer on virgin ground, one who really thinks for herself. Refreshingly different as some of her own offering is, one is even more pleased that she is questioning the currently accepted parameters of art. Her intellected stance may well help make the act of art, socially more fractious.”
— Keshav Malik, The Times of India
“Nath compels the viewer to step forward into her world, it is a world of weft and weave, of colour and textures and contour. The show ….. abounds in the beauty and harmony that can be spelt in the world of permutations and combinations ….. It is through a powerful process of recollection that Nath presents the conflict and cohesive nature of ideas…….. The works on the wall are not just smashing, they seem to reflect facets of the world gone by and now just living…… Nath’s show gives us insights into the world of Textiles as well as the experiential awareness about the totality of appeal in the world of design.”
— Uma Nair, The Asian Age
The Fabric of Our Society, 1997
“The most imaginative use of space was in the work of Gopika Nath who used the material aspects of living ….. to recreate a lower economic household environment, which pithily comments on the lives of the inmates. The impression that one comes away with is of the sheer materiality of human existence, its little and big needs, diversions and pleasures, all represented by the overflow of matter.”
— Gayatri Sinha, The Hindu
“It was a good reminder of whose effort has gone in to build the splendours others have appropriated ……. Her installation reminds us that times have changed and we have the right and power to look into the innards of every illusion.”
— Suneet Chopra, The Hindustan Times
Art for Wear
“Gopika Nath’s professional competence matched with her free expressive sense of styling and designing has made her new collection of saris quite unique.”
— The Stateman
“Gopika Nath’s hand painting on sarees is yet another exercise in pure creativity from a woman with numerous firsts to her credit.”
— The Evening News
“Gopika Nath who has shown her expertise and versatility in designing for furnishings to apparel to bed-linen, sarees, scarves and wall hangings and also carpets! pattern making comes naturally to her…… her many faceted creativity is striking.”
— Nilima Pathak, Mid-day
“Designing sarees is her forte and Gopika has designed and painted several collections for well-known stores like Vichitra and Roop Saree Kendra.”
— First City
“By no stretch of the imagination is this collection run of the mill……… Nath creates intricate patterns with delicious unconventional colour combinations….. Nath’s modern concepts on the traditional six yard saree come close to being an art form.”
— Neelam Mathews, The Hindustan Times
“Her creations are so perfect that buyers cannot believe it is hand-done…… She is a painter, a designer, a colour specialist – all rolled into one.”
— Meher Castelino, Mid-day
“Move over Zandra Rhodes. Painter-designer Gopika Nath is here with an equisite collection of hand painted sarees.”
— The Indian Express
“If you choose to wear one of Gopika Nath’s creations, it would be a bit like donning an original painting except that the fabric is not canvas but six yards of either swirling chiffon, crisp tussar, delicate brocade or clinging crepe…… Gopika Nath’s exclusive niche is well carved out. More importantly perhaps, is that she didn’t have to be a Husain or a Bawa to do it.”
— E, Jayashree Kurup, The Saturday Times