Bharti Kher Champions the Power of Women and Beauty of Bindis

Bharti Kher’s HENI Score—a unique metric—increased by 74% over the past three months, boosted by strong sales of the British-Indian artist's work at auction and the opening her solo museum show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in the North of England.

Kher’s The Gravy Train (2007) sold at Christie's for $226,800 in 2023, more than one and a half times its low estimate. It is the highest sale in the past three years for one of the artist’s signature, bindis-on-board works. In 2021, Sotheby’s sold a large untitled bindis-on-board work from 2006 for $113,400.

Her bindi works have been offered for around $160,000 at major art fairs in Basel, London and Hong Kong. She is represented by Hauser & Wirth, Perrotin and Nature Morte.

When Kher’s sculpture of an elephant covered in grey velvet bindis, The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own (2006), sold $1.5m at Sotheby’s in 2010, it became the most expensive sale at auction for a work by a female artist based in India.

Recently, the artist’s monumental female sculptures have made their mark in high-profile settings, including at an entrance of Central Park in New York in 2023. “Ancestor”, a hybrid, multi-headed female form, was presented by the Public Art Fund in 2022-23. Another monumental female figure was a talking point in London’s Regent’s Park in 2018 when it was presented as part of Frieze Sculpture.

Kher’s solo show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, “Alchemies”, features her sculptures and paintings (June 2024 to April 2025). A key work is Six Women (2012-14), a series of figures based on her casts of female sex workers in India. She chose to work with the women because they had been in contact with so many other bodies, and thus would imbue the plaster with the most complex energy, she told Elephant magazine.

To keep in touch with Bharti Kher’s shows and sales, follow her HENI News Dashboard.