In a world increasingly defined by speed and disposability, Divya’s slow, labour-intensive process functions as an act of resistance and devotion. She conceives her works as transcendental encounters rather than static objects. Through immersive scale, saturated colour, and dense tactility, she invites viewers into a sensorial experience that mirrors her own process - a form of interdimensional time travel in which memory, body, and imagination collapse into one.
Divya is a London-based British Indian textile artist and an alumna of the Royal College of Art, London. Her practice brings together myth, memory, and the cultural world of her mother tongue, Tamil. These strands are woven through labour, colour, composition, and scale, transforming tapestry into a form of text through the act of tufting itself. Rooted in a lifelong love for textiles and texture, her practice was shaped by growing up in India in a home where fabric was not merely material, but language and legacy. Textiles became her earliest mode of storytelling—tactile, rhythmic, and emotionally fulfilling—deeply influenced by her mother, who created fabric sculptures.
As part of the diaspora, Divya uses textiles to reconnect with land, language, and lineage. Her mother tongue and its rich heritage are invisibly embedded through pattern, repetition, and rhythm, allowing cloth to speak where words dissolve. Drawing inspiration from the self-taught techniques of folk artists, she privileges embodied knowledge over institutional authority, insisting that what is personal is also political, and that intimacy itself can be monumental.
By combining tufting with glass beads, Divya explores how surfaces catch and refract light, intensifying both visual and emotional resonance. While tufting is often dismissed as hobbyist or decorative, she reclaims it as a powerful contemporary language—demonstrating that in this revival of textile art, softness, slowing down, empathy, and compassion can be radically urgent.
Divya has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. She was recently awarded the Visual Artists Association International Scholarship Award for 2025. She was also the recipient of the RCA Scholarship Award 2021. She has been part of several juried competitions – Exeter Contemporary 2025, New Art Exchange Nottingham 2024, Textile Triennale Lodz 2022, New Contemporaries 2022 amongst others. She has conceived and curated five shows as founder of The Neulinge Collective and the Post-Colonials Collective. She is also the founder and host of the ARTiculate podcast and broadcasts on Apple Podcasts.
150 x 300 cms
Woollen and Acrylic yarn tufted on hessian fabric
163 x 168 cms
Woollen and acrylic yarn tufted on hessian fabric with found objects fused on the work
200 x 300 cms
Woollen and acrylic yarn tufted on hessian fabric
100 x 1000 cms
Tufted wool and acrylic yarn on hessian with mixed media and glass beads
223 x 213 cms
Woollen yarn and mixed media elements tufted on hessian cloth
Highlights
Awards
2024 Wells Contemporary | Wells Cathedral Somerset
2024 Collect | Somerset House London
2023 New Art Exchange Open | NAE Nottingham
2022 New Contemporaries | Ferens Gallery Hull and South London Gallery 2024
2022 Textile Triennale Lodz Poland | Textile Museum Lodz
2021 RCA Gilbert Bayes Trust scholarship Award
Exhibitions
2025 Textile is Intelligent (with Emmanuel Boateng) | Brownson Gallery Dept of the Arts and Humanities Manhattanville University Purchase, New York.
2025 Group show | The Royal Over-Seas League | London
2025 Solo show | Liechtenstein
2024 Collect 2024 | Crafts Council, Somerset House, London
2024 Paper Cuts | Birkbeck University Pelts Gallery, London
2024 Garden of Delights on Earth | Gallery 46 Whitechapel, London
2024 Empire, Space and Time | University of Greenwich, London
2024 Rinse & Repeat | Hypha Gallery Stratford
2024 Broken Spaces (with Emmanuel Boateng) | Spud Gallery New Forest, UK.
2024 Wells Contemporary Art Show – Juried competition | Wells Somerset, UK.
2024 Unity – Open Call (group exhibition) | Tom Cox Gallery, London UK
2024 International Artist Exhibition (with Emmanuel Boateng) | Manhattanville College Gallery, New York.
2023 17th International Tapestry Triennale – Juried Competition | Centrale Museum of Lodz, Poland
2023 New Contemporaries – Juried Competition | South London Gallery London
2023 Alumni of Colour Association (AoCA) Exhibition: Diaspora and Belonging – Juried Show | Mother London
2023 The Walls Are See Through – Curated show | Rockingham Community Centre, London.
2023 New Art Exchange (NAE) – Juried Show | Nottingham, UK
2023 Printmaking and Multilingualism | Royal College of Art, London, UK.
2023 Textile is Intelligent (with Emmanuel Boateng) | Koppel Project Hampstead Heath London, UK.
2023 Fragments Folds and Frays (with Emmanuel Boateng) | Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich Galleries, London, UK.
2023 Croydon BID Project | Croydon Council, London, UK.
2022 17th International Tapestry Triennale – Juried Competition | Centrale Museum of Lodz, Poland
2022 New Contemporaries (Group show) – Juried Competition | South London Gallery London
2022 New Contemporaries (Group show, Juried Competition | Hull, UK.
2022 Home Ground (with Chudamani Clowes, Maryam Hina Hasnain, Mariam Habib) | Art Chowk Karachi, Pakistan.
2022 Spread | Turf Projects London UK.
2022 ReContact 2022 | Ankara University, Turkey.
2021 Figure it Out (with Chudamani Clowes, Maryam Hina Hasnain, Mariam Habib) | Lewisham ArtHouse Lewisham London, UK.
2021 Proxy Group Show | Cromwell Place Kensington London UK.
2021 Together it Seams | Standpoint Gallery, London UK.
2020 Haus-a-rest Zine show.
2020 Work in Progress Show Royal College of Art London.
2020 Vasteras International Art Fair, Sweden.
2019 ‘For Money or Love’ Group show Copeland Gallery Peckham.
2019 Degree Show BA (Hons) Wimbledon College of Art.
2018 The Toast Rack, Artisan Bakery & Cafe | Wandsworth | London.
2018 ‘Netflix and chill’ Group show at the Flying Dutchman | Camberwell.
2018 Neulinge (with Chudamani Clowes, Maryam Hina Hasnain, Mariam Habib) | Crypt Gallery St Pancras King’s Cross, London, UK.
2017 Khajoli Competition final shortlist exhibition | Parliament House London.
2016 Made in Morley, Print Exhibition | Morley College | London.
2016 Portrait Exhibition | Putney Library | London.
2015 Sculpture Exhibition | Kings College School | Wimbledon, London.
2015 Open Studios | Wimbledon Art Studios, London.
2013 Studio 106 Group Exhibition ‘Seven’ | Fulham Broadway, London.
2013 Fulham Community Centre Exhibition | Fulham, London.
Permanent Exhibitions
SoHo Gallery Art and Design Centre | Sweden
Bollywood Restaurant | Munich
Google Arts and Culture permanent online exhibition