Education:
2013 Master of Fine Arts, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University, USA
2011 Studio Diploma Certificate Program, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
2010 Post-Baccalaureate Certificate Program in Fine Arts, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
2002 Bachelor of Commerce (Honors), Calcutta University, Kolkata, India Artist in Residence:
2018 Ucross Foundation, Wyoming
2016 Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, New Mexico
2016 The Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York
2015 La Napoule Art Foundation, France
2014 The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire 2014 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Virginia
2013 Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont
Exhibitions:
2024 Art Dubai, Shrine Empire, Dubai, UAE
2023 Art Mumbai, Shrine Empire, Maharashtra, India
2023 Delhi Contemporary Art Week, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2023 India Art Fair, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2022 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, curated by Shubigi Rao, December 12th, 2022 – April 10th, 2023
2022 India Art Fair, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2022 Simulacrum, Curated by Arushi Vats, Anant Art, Bikaner House, New Delhi, India
2021 Keeping Score, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2021 Hub India at Artissima, Turin, Italy
2021 Delhi Contemporary Art Week, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2020 India Art Fair, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2019 India Art Fair, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2019 Delhi Contemporary Art Weekend, Shrine Empire, New Delhi
2018 Caressing History, Prameya Art Foundation, Shrine Empire, New Delhi 2018 Lapses II, Sakshi Gallery and Shrine Empire Gallery, Mumbai
2018 India Art Fair, Shrine Empire, New Delhi
2018 Delhi Contemporary Art Weekend, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2017 Delhi Contemporary Art Weekend, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2017 Lapses, Shrine Empire at The Harrington Street Art Center, Kolkata 2017 India Art Fair, New Delhi, India
2016 India Art Fair, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India
2013 Drawing Connections: 23rd Drawing Show, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA
2013 en(countering) impossibilities, MFA Thesis Exhibition, Fourth Wall Gallery,Boston,MA
2013 Graduating Students + Award Recipients, SMFA
2013 Deciphering Identity, Jewett Art Gallery, Wellesley College, MA
2013 Pieces Apart: Quantifying Experience, Huret & Spector Gallery, Boston, MA
2012 Invited to assist as a drafter for the Sol LeWitt Wall drawing #118, Something along those lines, Grossman Gallery, SMFA, Boston, MA 2012 Museum Council Summer Party Juried Auction,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2012 SMFA Medal Award Gala and Juried Auction, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2012 Proof of Purchase, Samson Projects Gallery, Boston, MA
2012 Violence Transformed 2012: The Artist’s Voice, Resnikoff Gallery, Boston,MA 2012 Annual Juried Drawing Show, SMFA, Boston, MA
Awards/Nominations:
2017 Aparajita You Shine Art award, Kolkata, India 2016 FID Prize (Nominee)
2013 Montague International Travel Grant
2013 Nominated (Finalist) for Blance E Colman Award, Boston
2013 Dana Pond Award in Painting (Honorable mention) SMFA, Boston
2011 Scholarship, MFA Program, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
2011 Award winner, Annual Juried Drawing Show, SMFA, Boston
2011 Scholarship, Post-Baccalaureate Program, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Bibliography:
2017 The strange ways of memory, Soumitra Das, Telegraph Kolkata, India https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170603/jsp/opinion/story_154794.jsp
2016 The tiny dancer , Melissa Woods, PEM Connected, MA http://connected.pem.org/tiny-dancer/
2014 365artists365days project, featured artist, December 6 2014 2014 New American Paintings #110 NE
2014 Manifest International Drawing Annual INDA 8
Collections:
Devi Art Foundation, India
KNMA, India
Neerja Kothari (b.1980) is an artist currently living and working from Kolkata, India. She holds an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University, USA. Neerja’s work deals with the investigation of the absurd. It’s an attempt at trying to quantify an unquantifiable experience. This is inspired by the time spent in physical rehabilitation recovering from motor sensory neuropathy. Every movement that the brain forgot had to be relearned. The process was slow and fragmented. Every movement was broken down to its smallest bit. And then bit by bit the bigger ideas were formulated. The work then emerges as an investigation of larger existential questions. Derived from multiple instances and memories the work becomes an accumulation of time, labor, process, memories, marks and numbers. Therefore the work is at a point where a lived experience is being translated, explored and represented. There is a struggle to find that mode of representation, a search for a new code or new language of quantifying the unquantifiable; emotional memories in contrast to the muscle memory that had to be restored.
Some of her selected exhibitions include Art Dubai with Shrine Empire (2024); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, curated by Shubigi Rao, India (2022-23); Simulacrum, Curated by Arushi Vats, Anant Art, Bikaner House, New Delhi, India (2022 ); Keeping Score, Solo show, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India (2021); Hub India at Artissima, Turin, Italy (2021); Caressing History, Prameya Art Foundation, New Delhi, India (2018); Lapses II, Sakshi Gallery and Shrine Empire, Mumbai, India (2018); 2017 Lapses, Shrine Empire at The Harrington Street Art Center, Kolkata, India (2017); Drawing Connections: 23rd Drawing Show, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2013); en(countering) impossibilities, MFA Thesis Exhibition, Fourth Wall Gallery,Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2013); Deciphering Identity, Jewett Art Gallery, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, USA (2013); Pieces Apart: Quantifying Experience, Huret & Spector Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2013); SMFA Medal Award Gala and Juried Auction, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2012).
Neerja’s work has been published in the New American Paintings (NE#110) journal and the Manifest International Drawing Annual INDA8.
She has been awarded fellowships at the Ucross Foundation, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center and the La Napoule Art Foundation. Neerja was the recipient of the Montague International Travel Grant (2013) and the Dana Pond Award in Painting (Honorable mention) SMFA, Boston (2013). She was also nominated as a finalist for the Blance E Colman Award, Boston (2013). Her works are in the collections of Goldman Sachs, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Devi Art Foundation, amongst others.
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