The Flint Institute of Arts Museum acquires work by Chitra Ganesh

Hales is delighted to announce that Chitra Ganesh, Ocean Dream with Peacock, 2023 - 2024, has been acquired by The Flint Institute of Arts Museum, Flint MI, USA, through the Splendors of South Asia Fund and the Mary Mallery Davis Collection Endowment (2025.6) and is currently on view in the FIA Contemporary galleries.

 

Across a twenty-year practice, 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 'constantly attempts to challenge patriarchal norms and empower her female and queer subjects by constructing alternate visual narratives' [1], while drawing on South Asian visual traditions as well as canonical and contemporary feminist and queer scholarship. 

 

In this work, Ganesh layers painting and drawing with additional materials such as thread, buttons, and shells, combining handmade and mass-produced elements. References to children’s book illustration, domestic textiles, and Indian miniature painting intertwine with myth and memory. Through these various details, Ganesh creates a dreamlike space where personal history, popular culture, and the surreal merge in an exploration of storytelling and identity.