Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1996. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, NY in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA.

Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through a multidisciplinary approach, Ganesh has “catalysed a long- standing investigation of narrative and imagery anchored in historical South Asia and extending to contemporary global concerns. Her work challenges and disrupts conventions of gender, sexuality and power, particularly by centering or reorienting complex narratives – often of mythological or epic proportion – around iconic female protagonists and forms.”

Ganesh’s explorations of mythologies and narrative traditions bring important historical conversations to the contemporary moment. In nonlinear narratives and richly layered visual worlds, Ganesh subverts traditional storytelling to create women and queer centric narratives of the future. She draws out alternative depictions of sexuality and power from popular stories and histories, highlighting the accounts of female protagonists, which have often been subsumed or marginalized by plot lines that reproduce the contours of majoritarian power. In Ganesh’s work, women and queer characters become the protagonists, actively shaping their futures. She encourages the viewer to see what was always there – what was once in the ‘margins of a mythic history’ is brought to the foreground.

Eclipse (2020) is a digital print characteristically informed by Ganesh’s studies in literature and semiotic theory, and regular travels to India. Combined with her upbringing in New York City’s far reaching urban and cultural landscape, these influences taken together yield a distinct perspective. In detailed works, including Eclipse, Ganesh combines a vast array of influences including South Asian iconography, science fiction and queer theory, with the visual languages of vintage comics, Bollywood posters, and video games.