Kirtika Kain: Pitch

Kirtika Kain has an ongoing interest in the social classifications of materials, particularly as they relate to class and status. In her works, gold, bitumen, and turmeric combine to create intricate and luminous surfaces that highlight the aesthetic qualities of her chosen materials and complicate assumptions about their relative high or low value.

The tar used in each of these works carried a material history of extraction, labour and transformation, as well as a cultural history of ritual, ceremony, and medicine. The histories of the gold and turmeric used prominently in the works were equally rich and complex. Kain acknowledged these embedded histories while engaging in experimental processes that extend the cultural language of the materials.

The new works presented in Pitch reflected Kain’s background as printmaker. The two sides of the ambitious central work were essentially a plate and a print, with the canvas side having acted as the printing plate for the hessian component. Similarly, the smaller tar works that surrounded the significant scrolling work were produced as casts of other painted surfaces. In this way, Kain’s studio becomes like an archive that continually creates itself. These processes are also alchemical, dealing in transferal and transformation.

Pitch was presented as part of nginha: here and now, a season of commissioned works celebrating new art and ideas.

Kirtika Kain was born in New Delhi, India and now lives and works on Darug Country, Western Sydney. Considerations of caste and identity underpin her materially driven practice, which seeks to reimagine personal and collective narratives. Kain’s work has been exhibited widely, both locally and internationally, with notable exhibitions including Adelaide Biennale, 2026; Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2025; the 24th Biennale of Sydney, 2024; and the 13th Bamako Encounters at the African Biennale of Photography, Mali, 2022.