Bio

I am a multi-disciplinary Guyanese American artist of South Asian descent. I received an MFA in painting and drawing and an MA in South Asian art from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Recent projects include group exhibitions at the MCA Chicago, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the MCA Denver, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and the Sharjah Biennial 14 and solo exhibitions at the Boise Museum of Art , Roberts Projects, and Kavi Gupta Gallery. Upcoming projects include solo exhibitions at the ICA San Francisco (San Francisco), the Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa, FL) , the National Museum for Women in the Arts (Washington, DC) and Socrates Sculpture Park (NYC, NY). My works are represented in collections which include Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, the Nasher Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Tampa Museum of Art, the Joselyn Museum, the Tia Collection, the Perez Collection, the Shah Garg collection, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Statement

I am interested in how memory and myth allow us to unravel and re-imagine historical narratives. My primary pursuit is to give voice to people whose voices were once quieted by focussing on oral histories and family archives.  Using both my own family’s ocean migrations and research on the period of colonial indentured labor during the 19th Century, I seek to expand our sense of “history.” Re-writing this colonial history contributes to contemporary dialogue by making visible the struggles and perseverance of those who lived it.   I often focus on women’s labor and employ practices and materials associated with the domestic sphere such as embroidery, weaving, various fiber elements, etc.  I re-imagine vintage and found materials that have a rich past as a way of creating a dialogue with the original makers and the time periods in which they were cherished as well as a means of navigating my own personal narrative.  I often use vintage saris as a way of connecting women of the South Asian diaspora from around the world. Thinking about colonization in Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean is a way of tracing my family’s history in Guyana and India and of fostering discussion around contemporary issues surrounding gender and labor. Combining, re-contextualizing, and reconfiguring disparate materials is a way of making sense of the world around me and of reconciling multiple cultural spheres that I inhabit as an Indo-Caribbean woman.