Biography

b. 1989
Mumbai, India
Lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand and Mumbai, India.

Areez Katki's practice dwells between the textual and material-based intersections where the phenomenology of a postcolonial identity is examined through modalities of (de)languaging and (re)framing cultural affects. A fragmentation of memory is evident throughout the migratory experience and tends to expose myriad themes, from spiritual cosmologies to its queering trajectories. These affects elucidate the notion of hybridity as a condition for identities that have been historically subject to rupture.

Questions that illuminate the political significance of materiality emerge from spaces, often domestic, that Katki dwells between. Personal and familial artefacts that were once consumed are now restored to be contextualised again through the ecological, aesthetic and cultural slippages of ancient Zoroastrian knowledge systems. Ongoing investigations into plurality manifest in Katki's spatial interventions and installations, which frame the lived experience through reclaimed and found materials. These delicate textualities are embalmed with traditional processes of mark making—embroidery, weaving, printmaking, staining—that destabilise the expressionistic hierarchies established by a dominant culture.

The materials explored and preserved throughout his practice also convey Katki's ongoing engagements with storied narratives, using biomythographic threads that entwine the historic and the personal through poetic means. These gestures suggest a blurring of metaphysical dualities, while also surveying the nature of (our) relationships between sites and embodiments.

Group Exhibitions

2022
All My Books Have Faded Spines, McLeavey Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, NZ
There Is No Other Home But This [with Khadim Ali],
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu New Plymouth, NZ
Fruit Cubab, Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ

2021
Bildungsroman [& Other Stories], Tarq Gallery, Mumbai, India
Like Birds, Like Fishes, Tim Melville Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
History reserves but a few lines for you, Enjoy Contemporary Art Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, NZ
Thieves' Market, The National, Ōtautahi Christchurch, NZ

2020
On Chroma, Sumer Gallery, Tauranga, NZ
It's Never Too Late To Learn, Howick Historic Village [spatial intervention via Te Tuhi], Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland , NZ
Notes & Methods, Tim Melville Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Bildungsroman, The Otago Museum, Ōtepoti Dunedin, NZ

2019
Some Retained Delights, RM Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Uncruising, Phoenix Gallery, Athens, Greece
Bildungsroman, Malcolm Smith Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ

Solo Exhibitions

2022
Notes for Tomorrow, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Language is Migrant, Colomboscope 7th Edition, Colombo, Sri Lanka

2021
The Stories We Tell Ourselves, The Dowse Museum, Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt, Wellington, NZ
Swing Back, Linger, McLeavey Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, NZ
Mānawatia Takatāpui | Defending Plurality, Tauranga Art Gallery, Tauranga, NZ
A Link, A Loop, A Circle, Granville Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Homespun, Franklin Arts Centre, Pukekohe East, NZ

2020
19 Gallery, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, NZ
Virtual Art Fair, Tim Melville Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Paper Trail, Tim Melville Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Even the Birds are Walking, Latitude 53, Treaty 6 Territory Edmonton, Canada

2019
Nectar, Mangere Arts Centre, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Hot Mess, Bowerbank Ninow, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Arthur Bunder Press, Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, India
Softly Spoken, Hastings City Art Gallery, Heretaunga Hastings, NZ
Come, Remember [with Ophelia King], Window Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
19 Gallery, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Roots, Gallery Crossing, Gifu, Japan
Making Conversation, The Dowse Museum, Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt, Wellington, NZ
Tableau, Masterworks Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ

2017
Vanished Delft, Wallace Arts Trust, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Marabar Caves, Gus Fisher Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
Beauty is in the Street, Ramp Gallery, Kirikiriroa Hamilton, NZ
Contemporary NZ Craft, Fog Linen Works, Tokyo, Japan

2016
Beauty is in the Street, Objectspace, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ
MRKT, All Press Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, NZ