Artist Statement

Ravinder (She/Her) has an Honours BFA from McMaster University. Upon graduating, Ravinder immersed herself in the arts community in Hamilton, including regularly exhibiting her work and volunteering on art committees. She worked at the Art Gallery of Hamilton from 1997—1999, broadening her exposure to national artists, public collections and art education. In 2022, two pieces of her work were acquired by the Art Gallery of Hamilton for their permanent collection.

Ravinder returned to painting and art-making after a ten year unplanned hiatus (2003—2013). During this time, and moving forward, she has devoted herself to raising three children and recovering from an aggressive form of cancer.

Ravinder is a first generation immigrant, born in England and migrating to Canada in 1975. Her parents owned their own textile manufacturing factories in both countries. Her use of pattern and ‘textiles’ echoes this backdrop. Ravinder uses hand stitching in her paintings and fibre works, referencing both her childhood environment and also in reference to the extreme medical procedures she has undergone.

Ravinder’s distinctive voice is one of few South Asian women producing art in Hamilton. Her work is often times autobiographical and series based. Ravinder largely focuses on how the mind, body and spirit are connected and integrated. She explores various aspects of these connections throughout her work including: trauma, epigenetics, memory, remembrance and neuroplasticity. Ravinder’s work addresses dysfunctional family systems, misogyny, racism, displacement, and what it means to be a woman of colour.

​While primarily an abstract painter, Ravinder has been working with fabrics and fibre based materials to create more sculptural works. These are represented in The Gold Box Series, an ongoing series since 2021. These works invite the viewer into the artist’s stories as a survivor of various traumas. The gold borders of each shadow box isolate fragments of a personal reflection of intersectional experience. Ravinder’s use of an intimate voice and scale captures invisible systems—racial, patriarchal—that are prescribed upon and within the body. She isolates and integrates these systems through painting, braiding, writing, gilding and framing.

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