About
Madahar is a UK-born artist of Indian ancestry. She has a multi-disciplinary practice previously engaging photography and time-based media and now embracing the traditional craft of Indian Miniature painting. After formal art training in the UK and US, grounded in the rigours of learning Western approaches to representation, she created several nature-related bodies of work including the commissioned photographic portrait series ‘Flora’. In 2021, desiring more balance and connection to her dual heritage, she transitioned to Indian painting.
After extensively researching an authentic master in India to train her in producing Indian Miniatures, Jaipur-based teacher Ajay Sharma accepted Madahar as an apprentice. Since then, she has been making annual trips to India to learn in-depth in Ajay’s studio. As well as discovering time and labour-intensive techniques and processes that have changed little in centuries, she is developing an appreciation of the historical evolution of this South Asian art form. The joyful, meditative experience of making paintings, is deepened by the opportunity to further explore her artistic and cultural heritage.
Madahar graduated from Winchester School of Art/Southampton University with a BA in Fine Art in 1999 and on a graduate scholarship award, from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University in Boston, US, with an MFA in Studio Art in 2003. She has exhibited internationally in group and solo shows, including at Aspex Gallery, Harewood House, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, US. She was awarded the 2008/09 Bradford Fellowship in Photography by the National Science and Media Museum. Madahar has received commissions from organisations including the Glynn Vivian Gallery, FACT, Film and Video Umbrella and Photoworks. Her work is held in collections such as the Government Art Collection, Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum, the MIT Art Collection, the V&A Museum and the Yale Center for British Art.
Madahar is represented in the US by Anderson Yezerski Gallery and Jane Deering Gallery.