Bio

Suchitra is a multi-disciplinary Guyanese American artist of South Asian descent. She received an MFA in painting and drawing and an MA in South Asian art from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Recent projects include solo exhibitions at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the ICA San Francisco, the Seattle Asian Art Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, and the Tampa Museum of Art, and group exhibitions at the São Paulo Biennial, the MCA Chicago, the ICA Boston, the the MCA San Diego, the NY Historical Society (upcoming), the MCA Denver, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, and the Art Gallery of Ontario. My works are represented in collections which include the Seattle Art Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, the Nasher Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the MCA San Diego, the Santa Barbara Art Museum, the Tampa Museum of Art, and the Joslyn Art Museum.

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 embracing multiple cultural spheres that I inhabit as an Indo-Caribbean woman.