A Studio Visit with Sagarika Sundaram
Step into Sagarika Sundaram’s studio in New York as she creates a new work, titled ‘Released Form,’ commissioned by the UBS Art Collection for the UBS Lounge at Art Basel Miami Beach 2024.
Sagarika Sundaram spoke with Mary Rozell, Global Head of the UBS Art Collection, about the inspiration behind her abstract and sculptural textile works. Born in Kolkata, India, and raised in Dubai, Sundaram’s fascination with textiles began in childhood. Her works are created using natural fibers, primarily wool and silk, and dyed by hand. They reflect her multicultural upbringing, interest in nature and ever-evolving experimentation with color and technique. Themes of transformation and alchemy flow through her work, which she describes as a space for discovery: “In China they say a work is successful when you can see the artist at play,” she muses. “I love that.”
Sundaram describes herself as a magpie, driven by curiosity as she goes along. Her influences are diverse—architecture, nature, the human body, and the performing arts. “Working in abstraction has taken me on this journey of asking, “What other disciplines can I draw from?” she says.
Encountering this new work in the studio, Mary Rozell remarked:
One of the things I love is that you have created this sense of possibility. The work is not static. It’s not set in a frame but it’s not just a hanging piece, it’s got all sorts of undulations.
For the artist’s largest artwork to date, the installation for the UBS Lounge, Sundaram noted that the colors, patterns and vibrancy of the city of Miami resonated with her. The tri-paneled piece nods to the double cloth weaving technique, where woven threads multiply the width or length of a single cloth. Made from hand-dyed felted wool and wire, ‘Released Form’ opens like a concertina, tripling in size as it breaks the surface and pushes the limits of its form. The work generates a striking presence in the room, playing with the contrast between form and void, surface and structure, that become powerful forces shaping the viewer’s experience.
The work is a mirror of an encounter with myself over the four weeks it took to create," Sundaram explains. “Where does laughter come from in the body? I’m working from that same unknowable space as I move around and throw fiber down, making marks that coalesce into compositions.
Additionally, the UBS Art Collection recently acquired Sundaram’s ‘Is Still A Rose’ (2024), a work marked by swirling reds, greens, and yellows, with vein-like lines webbing through it. “UBS has a mission to collect the art of our time,” she says. “It’s an honor to add my contribution alongside some of the world’s greatest artists.”
UBS is the proud Global Lead Partner of Art Basel and has been the Lead Partner of Art Basel Miami Beach since its inception in 2002.
