42 x 24”
Silk ‘madras’ cloth, sequin factory waste
Madras cloth is closely associated with Ivy League dress, though its histories of production are often obscured. This work is presented in dialogue with Ralph Lauren’s flag sweater and all-plaid silhouettes—icons of an American visual language.
The work reflects on the artist’s time at Ralph Lauren, where she contributed to the design of these sweaters. It considers how textiles such as madras—once woven in India for colonial markets—continue to be extracted, translated, and recast, raising questions of labour, authorship, and appropriation.
ten days (give or take) v.1 / v.2, 2025
54 x 72”
Jacquard woven, cotton, Italian bouclé, rayon, elastic-nylon, bambu
A double portrait of two figures shaped by race, colour, and nationality. The work reflects on proximity and distance, tracing the tensions that define an unlikely union.
Co-created with painter Ethan Hoskins
Untitled, 2025
54 x 152”
Jacquard woven, cotton, rayon
Often, the sense of safety is rooted in the memory of physical closeness — an embrace, the familiarity of shared space, the experience of being held. At a distance, however, these recollections become increasingly indistinct, taking on a blurred and fragmented quality.
Using custom software, both archival and original photographs were pixelated, with time functioning as a metric to determine the spatial intervals between pixels. These nearly obliterated images were subsequently translated onto a Jacquard loom, further fragmenting their already reduced forms. The Jacquard loom, historically regarded as one of the earliest computational devices, operates as a precursor to binary systems. In this translation, the textile becomes a site of distortion, mirroring the ways in which memory itself is altered over time and distance.
Co-created with photographer Anant Saraf
The Knit Wiggle, et al., 2024
generally larger than life
Stoll knitted, nylon, merino wool
The Knit Wiggle is a modular inflatable that turns a simple bench into architecture. In its resting state, it works as a cushioned seat—warm, soft, inviting. Within seconds, it expands into a dividing wall, creating private and intimate spaces out of thin air. As it inflates, the knitted upholstery reveals a hidden landscape—textures meant to be noticed, inviting moments of pause. Multiple walls can connect and nestle together, forming flexible configurations that adapt to their environment.
Alongside it are The Knit Curve, a soft spatial divider, and The Knit Morph, a dynamic sculptural form. Together, they reimagine interiors as adaptable, modular, and always in motion.
Knit Wiggle was co-created with Kipper Reinsmith, Knit Morph with Dway Lunkad
36 x 48”
Manual machine knit, Loro Piana cashmeres
Kashmir was once whole. Then it was broken. Now it is being pieced back together—though perhaps it never can be.
The work begins with a stock image of the Kashmir Valley, translated into knit through punch cards. The yarn—pashm from Leh, spun and branded in Italy—carries its own layered geographies. Then comes erasure. Washed wool collapses, losing form and integrity. The fabric disfigures. Reconstruction follows. Darning stitches—some hidden, some exposed—bind the fragments into uneasy unity.
36 x 48”
Hand woven, various yarns
In Pondicherry, along the flower-strewn paths of the French town, it’s impossible to ignore the divide between White Town and Brown Town. One was planned, polished, and perfumed for the colonists; the other, left to fester in neglect. And yet, the facade of charm endures. A triumph of colonial order.
yuktivagarwal@gmail.com
@yukti.v.agarwal
Mumbai | New Delhi
Yukti is an artist, among other things. Her work navigates the diabolical experience of belonging and unbelonging in a world that is fractured — and still rapidly fracturing. Through fabric, she unravels histories that have been forgotten, erased, clawed, neutralized: stories of war, nation-building, and diasporic identity. By examining how our individual and collective memories of such events are contorted, warped, and re-authored when revisited, her practice traces these tangled narratives across geopolitical boundaries that resist repair, in search of small, possible acts of reconstitution.
Education
Rhode Island School of Design
BFA Textiles, Minor: Art History
Brown University
AB Psychology
AB Contemplative Studies
Permanent Collections
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design Providence, USA
Acquired, 2025
The John Hay Library
Providence, USA
Acquired, 2021
The Fleet Library
Providence, USA
Acquired, 2019, 2020
2025
Viewing Day
RISD Museum, USA
2024
Textiles Triennial
Woods Gerry, USA
Sensory Silhouettes
RISD Museum, USA
Textiles Senior Show
Woods Gerry Gallery, USA
Graduate Thesis Exhibit
Amica Convention Center, USA
Objects May Shift
Salone Satellite, Milan, Italy
While The Sap Flows
Granoff Center, USA
2023
Majnun by Jaipur Rugs x Pavitra Rajaram Design
Salone del Mobile, Milan, Italy
Major Survey Show
Gelman Gallery, USA
The Witching Hour
Granoff Center, USA
Inherent Vice: Hidden Narratives
RISD Museum, USA
2022
translat[]
Granoff Center, USA
2021
Chai Tea Latte
Gelman Gallery, USA
2020
Many Years Later
Granoff Center, USA