On Oct. 3, New York artist Chitra Ganesh was supposed to begin an ambitious mural in the Ring Gallery of Contemporary Calgary. The piece, one of the many highlights of Ganesh’s Astral Dance exhibit, would go on to cover nearly 20 metres of space on the unique curved walls of the gallery. Entitled the Wolf Watcher’s Dream, the site-specific mural showcases a number of the renowned artist’s hallmarks.

Throughout history, and across cultures and continents, there have always been women, sibyls, who possessed secret, sacred knowledges from the healing arts to folklore - and especially clairvoyance. Depending on the context, these figures might be revered, worshiped, sought out or feared, shunned and persecuted, but they always helped usher in the future. Taking this historical archetype as its framework, Cantos of the Sibylline Sisterhood gathers a group of feminist, queer and trans artists working in a range of mediums, all of whom tap into that ancestry, setting ages-old potencies against modern-day threats.

The latest installation in the Murals of La Jolla program is artist Chitra Ganesh's first large-scale public work on the West Coast. "Resurgence," at 7540 Fay Ave., is all about connection, the artist says. Specifically, our connection to other species.

Through a practice anchored in {though not limited to) drawing, Chitra Ganesh has developed a sophisticated iconography and lively illustrative style that synthesizes myriad references to South Asian mythology and religion, comic books, pulp and science fiction, Bollywood posters, and feminist and queer history and theory. Ganesh's exhibition here, "Nightswimmers," processed and responded to the profound shifts experienced during the widespread lockdowns that characterized the pandemic's early months, when life suddenly came to a terrifying and isolating standstill. In contrast to the unruliness of past work, from science fiction- inspired feminist utopias to scenes of violence and body horror, this show felt altogether calmer, offering up moments of respite and reflection. With works installed on dark-purple walls in a dimly lit space, the exhibition evoked, with a contemplative mood, the liminal state between sleep and waking life, a limbo that seems an apt metaphor for the atemporal stupor of the past two years.

Ganesh's painted, drawn and sewn assemblages are like Borgesian libraries or delirious, encyclopedic archives. They combine South Asian cosmologies, Bollywood posters, queer histories, comics and science fiction to suggest hybrid narratives and utopias. Ganesh is at the height of her semiotician-creator powers in her current show, "Nightswimmers."

I’ve had this holographic portrait for decades, having brought it back to the US with me from one of my frequent trips to India as a young adult. It depicts the Buddha and the Dalit scholar B. R. Ambedkar, who became independent India’s first Minister of Law and Justice.

Chitra Ganesh’s art draw on Buddhist and Hindu iconography and pop culture to build a bridge to the idea of home.

For this issue, the artist has conceived this graphic narrative starting from a reflection on the concept of biodiversity, and a meditation on current states of uncertainty and fragmentation. Fusing image and text, she constructs a multilayered narrative that animates the interconnected nature of being.

“Born in Flames” brings together works by fourteen female- and nonbinary-identifying contemporary artists who present speculative narratives concerned with social liberation.

From classical Buddhist texts to early science fiction, Chitra Ganesh speaks of the femme body.

As this year’s QUEERPOWER commission, Chitra Ganesh has filled 10 panels of Leslie Lohman’s façade with images of queer activism, joy, and meditations on history, possibility, and gentrification

“In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn.”— Octavia E. Butler

Artists have long turned to the spiritual and mystical in times of crisis or amid objectionable conditions, seeking alternative understandings of reality.

This collection of seventy-three letters written in 2020 captures an unprecedented moment in politics and society through the experiences of Asian-American artists, curators, educators, art historians, editors, writers, and designers.

A group-art exhibition which began in the city recently and is on till June 2021, showcases laughter through art.

Art Asia Pacific, Issue 122, March/April 2021, by Mimi Wong.

Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski and Chitra Ganesh sat down to

have this conversation together via Zoom on November

8th, 2020. This exchange, originally planned for March, had

been postponed along with the exhibition due to COVID-19

shutdowns across the United States. They recorded this

conversation in the midst of the US election week, and held

space for the following curiosities.

After an unusual, unprecedented year, upcoming art will reflect as well as soldier on with a range of outdoor and indoor projects

Conversation between Chitra Ganesh and Jareh Das.

“To have a more just possibility of our future, we have to keep looking back into the past differently, in a way that upends our ideas of teleology and progress.”

Ancient mythologies, popular folklore, queer futurisms: in the art of Chitra Ganesh, these seemingly disparate elements swirl together in fantastic combinations as pathways for reconfiguring the present.