Chitra Ganesh’s drawing-based installations, relief prints, comics, and animations explore the potentialities of experimental storytelling. Her visual iconography draws from conventions of science fiction, comic books, fairy tales, and mythologies of the South Asian subcontinent. Ganesh harnesses these forms to subvert their typical narrative structures, instead crafting enigmatic, non-linear narratives suffused with an expansive range of temporal and geopolitical referents. The artist’s works function as speculative portals, offering viewers a space for reflecting upon universal questions about the human condition, the cyclical nature of time, and the precarity of our current world. Harnessing a multi-layered language that draws from both classical and vernacular forms, Ganesh’s imaginative dreamscapes invite audiences to step into her multiverse, encouraging us to ask deeper questions rather than providing us with answers.

A key focus of Ganesh’s practice lies in her exploration of queer and femme subjects who have been absent or marginalized within received canons of art history, myth, and literature. The protagonists in her narratives defy imposed gender roles, wield influence to enact justice, and channel erotic and collective intelligence to develop new technologies and relationships. Ganesh’s hybrid entities and alternate futures challenge conventional representations of the female form, and in the process expand our understating of femininity, knowledge, and power.

Curated by Kali Steinberg, Curatorial Assistant, Picker Art Gallery.