Chitra Ganesh

Between South Asian Iconography, Science Fiction, and Queer Theory

In a creative career that now spans almost three decades, Chitra Ganesh (b. Brooklyn, New York, US, 1975; lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, US) has built an extensive oeuvre that, anchored in drawing and painting, branches out in manifold ways into media ranging from animation, mural, collage, and sculpture to computer-generated imagery and video. With enormous passion for detail, Ganesh combines a multifaceted palette of cultural influences with the visual idiom of vintage comics, Bollywood posters, and videogames. Her practice lets her delve into narratives and images drawn from the cultural history of South Asia without veering into nostalgia. Her works instead challenge conventions of gender, sexuality, and power by putting complex mythological narratives around iconic female protagonists front and center.

The monograph is primarily dedicated to Ganesh’s work 2013–2023, while including images and context from 1996 to the present. With essays by Natasha Bissonauth, Gayatri Gopinath, Saisha Grayson, Tausif Noor, Svati Shah, and Ksenia Soboleva.