Description
Oil bar, saree fabric, coloured pencil on wooden panel
24x30in
2026
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I first began incorporating saree fabric into my artwork during undergrad in 2015 as a way to explore my experience as a Bengali immigrant raised in Canada. While preparing for my first Artist Project in 2026 — Canada’s largest independent art fair — those ideas resurfaced naturally through this piece.
Split explores the feeling of carrying multiple versions of yourself at once. Different identities emerge depending on what life demands, and this work sits in the tension between those shifting states.
The red saree fabric references intimacy, memory, and devotion. In many South Asian cultures, red is associated with marriage, and here it becomes a reflection of my relationship to art itself — a lifelong commitment to making.
Using saree fabric around a male figure also introduces a quiet conversation around masculinity. As a child, being artistic often made me feel disconnected from other boys, especially while moving between cultures and environments. Yet materials like this became central to how I learned to see beauty and express myself. In this piece, the fabric becomes both vulnerability and protection.
Throughout the painting, motifs from the saree are etched back into the surface by hand, layered within a visible grid structure used to transfer the image onto the panel. Architectural distance markings are also embedded throughout the composition, referencing my background in architecture and my fascination with systems, measurement, and repetition.
The faded figure on the right can be seen as an earlier version of myself dissolving into the present — a reminder that identity is never fixed, but constantly reshaped over time.
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This is a 1 of 1 original. No prints of this piece will be made.
The work comes with a certificate of authenticity and ships in a natural oak frame.
If you'd like additional images or to learn more about this piece before acquiring it, email me directly at nashid@nashidchroma.com. If you're located in Toronto, I'm happy to deliver the work and install it in your home.
About Nashid Chroma
Nashid Chroma is a Bengali-Canadian multidisciplinary artist exploring identity, migration, memory, and the experience of living between cultures.
Drawing from backgrounds in both fine art and architecture, his practice spans painting, sculpture, textiles, and digital media. His work brings together bold colour, cultural imagery and material experimentation to examine how memories, places and inherited histories shape our sense of self.
Chroma has exhibited his work across Toronto and collaborated with organizations including Adidas, Disney+, MLSE and TikTok Canada.
Shipping
At this time original artwork will only be shipped within Canada and the United States due to cost and logistic limitations. Original work is not subject to the free shipping policy. The rate at checkout is a base price, and any remainder will be sent as an invoice via email.
However, if you are an eager collector elsewhere, please send an email to nashid@nashidchroma.com and we can figure out if it is feasible to get the artwork to you 🤍
If you're in the GTA, I'd be happy to come to your place and install the work for you.
Please check out the shipping section of my website for other shipping times and details!
Torn Between Cultures
I experience a lot of confusion about my identity as a Bengali immigrant raised in Canada. This division inspired the action of splitting my face in two. The saree fabric is a metaphor for culture, and can be interpreted as the flesh inside of me, or the fabric that holds me together when I feel like falling apart.
Self Referential Aesthetics
Painting on a wooden panel is symbolic of the Canadian part of my identity as lumber is one of our greatest resources. This medium allowed for a lovely subtractive process when I could scrape away the impasto smears of oil paint with coloured pencil and etch their pigment onto the wooden surface. The motifs themselves are taken from the saree fabric to allude to the cycle of introspection we all process when we negotiate our ever-changing identity.
Transformative Operations
I use the "grid" as metaphor for our "infinite pasts". It is also a representation of my love of mathematics. Coming from both a fine art and architecture background, my interests include abstractions in numbers, language, and visuals. Particularly, how these symbols can represent realities beyond our mortal perception. The grid is therefore a pragmatic tool to transpose my reference image onto a larger surface, but instead of hiding it, I decorate it and use it as an x-y axis to chart my existence like a complex equation.
Emotional Fidelity
My traditional art practice focuses more on exploiting the rich textures inherent to the media I love. My digital practice focuses on realism with subtle surreal chromatic deviations since that environment is infinitely flat and my style has developed to manufacture the illusion of texture. But in a non-digital environment, I can use thick texture to track my emotional states abstractly - like the grooves on a record that can be transformed to sound. These textural variations hold moments of time in them, and as ones eyes traverse these peaks and valleys, they will unearth intimate decision makings within more abstract formal representation.
About the Artist
Nashid Chroma is a Bengali-Canadian multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores identity, migration, memory, and the experience of living between cultures.
Drawing from formal backgrounds in both fine art and architecture, his work spans painting, sculpture, textiles, and digital media. Across these mediums, Chroma uses colour, material, pattern, and cultural references to examine how memories, places, and inherited histories shape our sense of self.
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SELECTED COLLABORATIONS & FEATURES
Adidas · Disney+ · MLSE · TikTok Canada · LCBO Food & Drink · Shopify
