Chitra Ganesh

Last updated
Chitra Ganesh
Chitra Ganesh Brooklyn Museum.png
Born1975 (age 48–49)
Brooklyn, New York
Education Brown University
Columbia University
StyleMultimedia
Partner Mariam Ghani
Website http://www.chitraganesh.com/

Chitra Ganesh (born 1975) is a visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Ganesh's work across media includes: charcoal drawings, digital collages, films, web projects, photographs, and wall murals. Ganesh draws from mythology, literature, and popular culture to reveal feminist and queer narratives from the past and to imagine new visions of the future. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Early life and influences

Chitra Ganesh is the daughter of Indian immigrant parents, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. [3] Growing up, she was indulged in the visual representation of Bollywood posters, comics, and literature. For the artist, 'visual languages in Bollywood's orbit became conduits for expressing an expanded sense of the real, heightening the fantastical and symbolic via a hybrid use of graphics and paint.' [4]

As a youngster from a diaspora community, she was exposed to Amar Chitra Katha (ACK), a famous Indian comic series based on religious and mythological narratives. It was one of her daily visual references, both in New York City at home and in India during summer trips. Children in India and the diaspora have been raised for decades with these comics, which are supposed to teach the South Asian population culturally. [5]

Ganesh's interest in ACK is crucial as many of her works reinterpret and redefine the comic. She was fascinated by the history of ACK and its portrayal of women. When she read the comic as an adult, she realized how often information was presented as timeless, trans-historical, and authentic. However, "the comic actually came with its own arguments, prescribed codes of conduct that maintain hierarchies of gender, skin color, and caste among others." [6] Hence, she had a range of experiences reading the comics again as she was interested in how reading with her adult eyes made her realize that comics that were just submerged in her memory banks.

Ganesh describes learning how to sew, embroider, and draw kolams from a young age- which she later realized were 'gendered forms of creativity.' [2] Her parents encouraged her to pursue art as a hobby, and enrolled her in art classes at a young age; however this was never seen as a viable career option, as the field was considered to be financially unstable.

Education

Ganesh graduated from the prestigious Saint Ann's School, and magna cum laude from Brown University with a BA in Comparative Literature and Art-Semiotics. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, New York in 2002. [7] Ganesh's studies in literature, semiotics, and social theory paved a way for her to become steadily engaged with narrative and deconstruction that animates her work.

During her time at Brown University as an undergraduate student, she was passionate for semiotics, feminism, post-coloniality, poetry, and translation. At the time, she encountered artists like Jaishri Abichandani, DJ Rekha, and other women from the South Asian Women's Creative Collective (SAWCC), which is an organization for South Asians who are interested in the arts. [8] The late 1990s was an essential time for her because she was influenced by the interactions with South Asian female artists, and by her involvement in a number of progressive communities. [2]

After her mother's death in 1998, Chitra Ganesh was hesitant about becoming an artist. Having a profession as an artist was nearly non-existent in her community. [9] Also, she thought becoming an artist was "an option for the wealthy folks or people from a family of artists." [2]

At Columbia University, New York, she focused on finding images that reflected her subjectivity in mainstream art and culture that often meant "reckoning with the anthropological colonial lens that prevail in both the selection and contextualization of art objects, alongside disturbing mass mediated repetitions of South Asian subjects circulated in America." [2] As an artist and a scholar, she realized how important it was for her to articulate her own thoughts and approaches to object making and the cultural histories that informed them. She noticed a distinct absence in representation of South Asian culture, art history, and contemporary art in her curriculum, and took additional classes in anthropology and South Asian studies to "fill in some of these gaps." [2]

Career and inspirations

After graduating from Brown University, she decided to get a job teaching junior high school in Washington Heights and continued to work in education (notably teaching English, and Social Studies). However, when her mother died, her life took a drastic turn. After the incident, she began teaching at junior high and kept painting in her apartment; she declared her career as an artist and realized the life is indeed very short. [10] [2]

Inspirations

Ganesh is inspired by non-canonical narratives and figures, botched love stories, present-day imperialism, lesser-known Hindu/Buddhist icons, nineteenth-century European fairytales, girl rock, and contemporary visual culture, such as Bollywood posters, anime, and comic books. [11] Her early 24-page comic book, Tales of Amnesia (2002–2007), appropriates scenes from Amar Chitra Katha; the original work's male warrior heroes were replaced with women, through whom Ganesh offer new female subjectivities. [12]

The Unknowns

Ganesh's series, The Unknowns—a series of mixed-media works on canvas—explore “the relationship between anonymity, mass-mediated images, and the monumental, in the construction of a feminine iconography.” [13] The series brings to mind large subway advertisements and posters and utilize various techniques including painting, collage, and commercial printing processes.

In “Knowing ‘The Unknowns’: The Artwork of Chitra Ganesh,” Svati P. Shah encourages viewers to consider the formal elements of Ganesh’s work instead of simply viewing them as existing in opposition to the art history canon. Shah describes the origins of the subjects’ of The Unknowns as coming from the “margins of a mythic history” and Ganesh's ability to interrogate "the gaze" through this series. [14]

Other works and publications

Another project by Ganesh that sheds light on the construction of feminine iconography is Eyes of Time, a 4.5-by-12 ft multimedia mural conceived for the Brooklyn Museum in New York. There are three figures in the mural that shows "the iteration of feminine power and the cyclical relationship of time." The artist explores the South Asian traditions of Saki, a divine female empowerment, and sacred Indian portrayals of the Greatest Goddess Kali. She not only paints the mural but also associates her work with the collection objects of Brooklyn Museum, which are accompanied with her wall mural. [15] [16]

Ganesh has also contributed to publications such as the anthology Juicy Mother 2, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards and was edited by Jennifer Camper. She has held residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York University, Headlands Center for the Arts, Smack Mellon Studios, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, among others.

In 2020, Ganesh created a large-scale installation on the facade of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York. [17] Titled “A city will share her secrets if you know how to ask”, the artist's massive installation covers many of the museum's windows in vinyl prints of the artist's iconic humanoid hybridizations. [18]

In 2024, Ganesh designed Coherence, a series of animated works in Penn Station's Moynihan Train Hall in New York, which further explores "femininity, sexuality, and power" through the emphasis on breathing practices. [19] Later that year, Ganesh's Regeneration was unveiled under the Art at Amtrak program. This work illustrates numerous flora such as the Rose of Jericho and Welwitschia from Southwest Africa, among others, to draw viewers into the vibrancy of nature. [20]

Awards and honors

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships that include: [7]

Selected exhibitions

Related Research Articles

Matthew Day Jackson is an American artist whose multifaceted practice encompasses sculpture, painting, collage, photography, drawing, video, performance and installation. Since graduating with an MFA from Rutgers University in 2001, following his BFA from the University of Washington in Seattle, he has had numerous solo exhibitions. His work has been shown at MAMbo Museo d'Arte Moderna in Bologna, Italy; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Boulder, Colorado; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA; the Portland Museum of Art Biennial in Portland, Maine; and the Whitney Biennial Day for Night in New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yvonne Jacquette</span> American painter, printmaker, and educator (1934–2023)

Yvonne Helene Jacquette was an American painter, printmaker, and educator. She was known in particular for her depictions of aerial landscapes, especially her low-altitude and oblique aerial views of cities or towns, often painted using a distinctive, pointillistic technique. Through her marriage with Rudy Burckhardt, she was a member of the Burckhardt family by marriage. Her son is Tom Burckhardt.

Jean Shin is an American artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She is known for creating elaborate sculptures and site-specific installations using accumulated cast-off materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather Hart</span> American visual artist

Heather T. Hart is an American visual artist who works in a variety of media including interactive and participatory Installation art, drawing, collage, and painting. She is a co-founder of the Black Lunch Table Project, which includes a Wikipedia initiative focused on addressing diversity representation in the arts on Wikipedia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyce Kozloff</span> American artist (born 1942)

Joyce Kozloff is an American artist known for her paintings, murals, and public art installations. She was one of the original members of the Pattern and Decoration movement and an early artist in the 1970s feminist art movement, including as a founding member of the Heresies collective.

Nina Kuo is an Asian American painter, photographer, sculptor, author, video artist and activist who lives and works in New York City. Her work examines the role of women, feminism and identity in Asian-American art. Kuo has worked in partnership with the artist Lorin Roser. Kuo has been described as being a pioneer of AAPI and Chinese American art and culture.

Jiha Moon is a contemporary artist who focuses on painting, printmaking, and sculptural ceramic objects. Born in Daegu, South Korea, Moon is currently based in Tallahassee, Florida, after years of living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. She joined Florida State University's Art department faculty in the fall of 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simone Leigh</span> American artist from Chicago (born 1967)

Simone Leigh is an American artist from Chicago who works in New York City in the United States. She works in various media including sculpture, installations, video, performance, and social practice. Leigh has described her work as auto-ethnographic, and her interests include African art and vernacular objects, performance, and feminism. Her work is concerned with the marginalization of women of color and reframes their experience as central to society. Leigh has often said that her work is focused on “Black female subjectivity,” with an interest in complex interplays between various strands of history. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.

Rochelle Feinstein is a contemporary American visual artist who makes abstract paintings, prints, video, sculpture, and installations that explore language and contemporary culture. She was appointed professor in painting and printmaking at the Yale School of Art in 1994, where she also served as director of graduate studies, until becoming professor emerita in 2017.

Tomokazu Matsuyama (松山智一 Matsuyama Tomokazu, born April 30, 1976, in Takayama, Gifu, Japan) is a Japanese-American contemporary visual artist. Matsuyama lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaishri Abichandani</span> American visual artist

Jaishri Abichandani is a Brooklyn-based artist and curator. Her interdisciplinary practice focuses on the intersection of art, feminism, and social practice. Abichandani was the founder of the South Asian Women's Creative Collective, with chapters in New York City and London, and director from 1997 until 2013. She was also the Founding Director of Public Events and Projects from at the Queens Museum from 2003 to 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elia Alba</span> American multidisciplinary artist (born 1962)

Elia Alba (1962) was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Queens, New York. Alba's ongoing project The Supper Club depicts contemporary artists of color in portraits, and presents dinners where a diverse array of artists, curators, historians and collectors address topics related to people of color and to women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet Henry</span> American artist

Janet Henry is a visual artist based in New York City.

Ann Pibal is an American painter who makes geometric compositions using acrylic paint on aluminum panel. The geometric intensity is one of the key characteristics that defines her paintings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Letha Wilson</span> American artist

Letha Wilson is an American artist working in photography and sculpture. She received her BFA from Syracuse University and her MFA from Hunter College. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been exhibited at The Studio Museum in Harlem, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, International Center of Photography, and Hauser & Wirth, among others.

Yamini Nayar is a visual artist working between New York and Delhi. Her work is part of the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Saatchi Collection, Queensland Art Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the US Department of State Art in Embassies collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inverna Lockpez</span>

Inverna Lockpez is a Cuban American painter, sculptor, and activist, that participated in the second wave of America's feminist movement. She is known for her graphic novel Cuba: My Revolution, a fictionalized memoir of her life prior to coming to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">María Berrío</span> Colombian artist

María Berrío is a Colombian-born visual artist working in Brooklyn, New York. The LA Times wrote that Berrío's large-scale collage works, "meticulously crafted from layers of Japanese paper, reflect on cross-cultural connections and global migration seen through the prism of her own history." She is known for her use of Japanese print paper, which she cuts and tears to create collages with details painted in with watercolour. Berrío, who spent her childhood in Colombia and moved to the US in her teens, draws from Colombian folklore and South American literature. Salomé Gómez-Upegui describes Berrío's work and inspirations by stating, "Women, narratives of displacement, and ecology play a central role in Berrío’s striking compositions, which are very much inspired by Latin American magical realism." In her interview with The Georgia Review in 2019, the artist discusses the tradition of aluna of the Kogi people in her work Aluna (2017). Berrío's collages are characterized by representations of mainly women, who often stare back at the viewer.

Hai-Hsin Huang is a Brooklyn-based Taiwanese artist. She works primarily in painting, drawing, and with publications.

Allison Bianco is an American visual artist and printmaker. She is based in Rhode Island.

References

  1. 1 2 "Brooklyn Museum". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Vadera, Jaret (2017-04-04). "Between, Beneath, and Beyond". South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA). Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  3. ↑ Ken Pratt (May 2008). "Chitra Ganesh - Breathing between the lines". Wound Magazine . 1 (3). London: 278. ISSN   1755-800X. Archived from the original on 2008-04-18. Retrieved 2018-11-30.
  4. ↑ "Chitra Ganesh on Utopia, Futurity, and Dissent". ocula.com. 2020-11-25. Retrieved 2020-11-25.
  5. ↑ Landrus, Mallica (2011). Tradition Trauma Transformation. David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University: Brown University. pp. 13, 14, 15, 16. ISBN   978-0-933519-52-7.
  6. ↑ Das, Kavita (May 26, 2015). "Drawing Inspiration: A conversation with Visual Artist Chitra Ganesh". Gallery Wendi Norris.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Chitra Ganesh > About > About Chitra Ganesh". www.chitraganesh.com. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Retrieved 2015-11-07.
  8. ↑ "About – South Asian Women's Creative Collective" . Retrieved 2019-03-20.
  9. ↑ Memories, New York Desi Artist Shares; says, Inspiration-Voices of NY (2015-05-26). "Drawing Inspiration: A Conversation With Visual Artist Chitra Ganesh". The Aerogram. Retrieved 2019-03-20.
  10. ↑ Zafiris, Alex (2014-12-15). "Chitra Ganesh: Of This Time". Guernica. Retrieved 2019-03-20.
  11. ↑ Gopinath, Gayatri (2009). "Chitra Ganesh's Queer Re-visions" (PDF). GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 15 (3): 469–480. doi:10.1215/10642684-2008-032. S2CID   143689037. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-12-17.
  12. ↑ "Chitra Ganesh". Ocula. 5 September 2022.
  13. ↑ "The Unknowns – Chitra Ganesh". www.chitraganesh.com. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  14. ↑ Shah, Svati P. (2011). "Knowing "The Unknowns": The Artwork of Chitra Ganesh". Feminist Studies. 37 (1): 111–126. doi:10.1353/fem.2011.0001. JSTOR   23069886. S2CID   146712467.
  15. ↑ "Chitra Ganesh: Eyes of Time". www.caareviews.org. Retrieved 2019-03-20.
  16. ↑ "Brooklyn Museum: Chitra Ganesh: Eyes of Time". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved 2019-03-20.
  17. ↑ Musser, Amber Jamilla (2021-04-06). "Chitra Ganesh: A City Will Share Her Secrets If You Know How to Ask". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
  18. ↑ "Chitra Ganesh on Utopia, Futurity, and Dissent". ocula.com. 2020-12-09. Retrieved 2020-12-09.
  19. 1 2 "Chitra Ganesh | Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station". Hales Gallery. 26 July 2024. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  20. 1 2 "NEW ART AT AMTRAK INSTALLATION AT NEW YORK PENN STATION". Amtrak Media. 6 September 2024. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  21. ↑ "Virtual Residency With Chitra Ganesh | University of Michigan Museum of Art". umma.umich.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  22. ↑ "Sultana's Dream - Chitra Ganesh | University of Michigan Museum of Art". umma.umich.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  23. ↑ Shana Ting Lipton (19 June 2008). "'Contradictions and Complexities: Contemporary Art From India' at d.e.n. and Western Project". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-07-23.
  24. ↑ Yoshimura, As told to Courtney. "Chitra Ganesh discusses her installation at the Brooklyn Museum". artforum.com. Retrieved 2016-03-05.
  25. ↑ "Gallery Wendi Norris | Chitra Ganesh: Protest Fantasies". www.gallerywendinorris.com. Archived from the original on 2015-10-31. Retrieved 2015-11-07.
  26. ↑ "Chitra Ganesh". rubinmuseum.org. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.