Fragments - Shabnam Vasisht

Indian-born designer, visual artist and author, Shabnam Vasisht sees colour as her cultural inheritance and expresses emotion through it.

Vasisht has lived in Ireland for over forty-five years and has held several solo exhibitions in Ireland and abroad – one of which was covered by RTE’s Arts Programme, ‘Cursai’. Her pastel images were on permanent display in Jury’s Hotel & Towers, Ballsbridge, until the hotel’s closure. In 2015, she was on a panel that curated an exhibition of the Irish State’s Art Collection (in association with the Office of Public Works) in the Municipal Gallery, Lexicon, Dun Laoghaire.

Sustainability is an important factor in Vasisht’s art practice. A retired dress-designer, she often uses the medium of her trade to create two-dimensional images and soft sculptures. This manipulation of waste textiles also extends to other throwaway products, combining diverse textures and colours by layering, intertwining or juxta positioning into a composite mixed-media whole.

In ‘FRAGMENTS’ Vasisht uses textile waste to echo the storm of the Covid pandemic. From the loneliness and isolation of lockdown, we still managed to snatch comforting fragments of clear skies, birdsong, brighter flowers and making Mycelium-like connections with one another.