Looking for common ground I go back to mythology, back to storytelling, to potential, possibility, magical realities and books.

The title of this sculpture – The fallow – refers to the time when farmed land is temporarily left untended to recover and regenerate. Kher says, “It’s when we all leave the earth alone and let her do exactly what she needs to do to heal herself”.

The fallow belongs to an ongoing series of works by the artist called the Intermediaries, that all begin life as golu figurines from Southern India. These small clay objects represent a colourful celebration of life, from everyday people and animals to gods and goddesses. Kher collected them for several years, but many became broken and cracked. When she then began making sculptures from them, her process of repair and reassembling resulted in unexpected, hybrid combinations.

The works merge the human, the divine and the natural world, and allow her to create new meanings and possibilities. She describes wanting to make “strange, magical spirit people that exist in the imagination”. These fluid beings capture an in-between state that represents the potential of a person, an animal, or an object to become something else, not bound by the rules of reality.

Although now made in bronze so it can withstand the weather, this huge, scaled-up sculpture is patinated (coloured using chemicals on the metal) to look like the original clay figures. It is made to appear worn, as though paint has rubbed off in places through years of use, like an old family heirloom.

Bharti Kher (b.1969) was born in London, UK and has lived in New Delhi, India since 1993. She works across painting, collage, photography, sculpture and installation. In 2024-25, YSP curated Alchemies, a major exhibition of the artist’s work in the Underground Gallery and outdoors.

Courtesy Bharti Kher Studio.