Chitra Ganesh
Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975, Brooklyn, New York, USA) is a visual artist who focuses on representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani, both forms of Indian folk art. Ganesh works in many mediums, including drawing, painting, animation, installations, collage, digital work, video, and sculpture.
Ganesh graduated from Brown University in 1996 with a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001, and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA.
About the Artist
Multiverse Dreaming
“Multiverse Dreaming” (2021) is a collection of twelve digital prints inspired by Amar Chitra Katha, a popular Indian comic book that originated in the 1990s and tells the tales of Indian myths and epics. Indian comic books help keep traditional stories and fables alive, impact the collective consciousness, and form society's values and norms. In using this form, Ganesh is trying to retell or offer new perspectives on these stories and her own.
Ganesh also uses iconography and symbolic references from art history in her artwork. “Multiverse Dreaming” centers on women and femininity and redefines how women are portrayed through artwork. Ganesh created this project during the pandemic and coping with the loss of her father. The growth and change during this period in her life is reflected through her artwork.
The characters and imagery throughout the series draw on broad-ranging symbols of rebirth, including Birth of Venus, Mami Wata, Mahishasura Mardini, figures from tarot, Jung’s anima, the phoenix and other icons of femininity and power. Multiverse Dreaming is also inspired by Iconologia, a book by Cesare Ripa from 1593, which explores traditions of articulating moral emblems and psychic states in figurative form.
“The Unknowns” is a collection of multimedia artwork that examines “anonymity, mass-mediated images, and the monumental in the construction of a feminine iconography.” Ganesh uses many different materials that intertwine ideologies, time periods, and cultures. She merges the idea of femininity with everyday items such as shower curtains, fake hair, and automotive glass, in addition to 1960s-70s B-grade movies, 19th-century orientalist paintings, documentary photography of sex workers, and mid-century studio photography from India, and references to Indian culture, textile designs, and traditional clothing.
Throughout the collection, Ganesh makes women, the “unknowns” and overlooked in society, the central figures in her artwork, reaffirming their power and importance. Ganesh also highlights female bodies and detaches them from the male gaze that objectifies women. She uses flowers in many of her works, which in Hinduism are used as a gift to deities and represent divinity and purity.
The long hair in one piece which emerges from the painting and out onto the floor is particularly interesting to note. In India, long hair is perceived as a gift, and also represents Kundalini, a form of divine feminine energy in Hinduism.
The Unknowns
The collection “Sultana’s Dream” (2018) references the 1905 story by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, “Sultana’s Dream,” which describes a utopian society entirely ruled and powered by women. This collection draws on themes of gender and power and the inversion of traditional societal roles. Ganesh uses visuals to represent the stories told in the text.
The main idea that Ganesh references is a female dystopian, Ladyland, where women are leaders and controllers of society. This challenges the traditional roles of men and women and creates a vision of what the world would be if the roles were swapped. She imagines a future where women are not restricted to male-dominated roles. She also shows how society tends to devalue women’s roles and everything they do. In Ladyland, balance comes from the harmony of humans and nature, where everyone uses solar panels, renewable energy, sustainability, and a clear code of ethics and morals. Ganesh uses her imagination and artwork to invoke societal change and transformation to destroy the patriarchal system framework of our society. She also references traditional Indian culture through clothing, patterns, and accessories. Through her artwork, she appreciated female resistance and the need for reform and change within society and gender roles.