Invitation
Bio
Artwork
 
 

IAAC Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora 2013

 
Pritika Chowdhry
Pritika Chowdhry
Pritika Chowdhry
www.pritikachowdhry.com
 

ARTIST STATEMENT
 
I engage with cultural forms of memory and representations of trauma through my creative practice. Often the starting point of my creative projects is deep research in a particular historical event or events of contemporary significance. My earlier projects have comprised of a series of installations that memorialize partitions and ethnic fissures occurring in the 20th century. In a recent project, I expanded the scale of my work to include architectural spaces and monuments as sites of memory. I made latex casts of the monuments to allude to the material body of the monument, and incorporated video and archival text in the resulting installation. In another recent project, I mined historical archives of post-world war I events, and utilized small but evocative vessels as containers of memory. Installed in experiential environments, these projects function as mobile and temporary memorials.

My works function as "memory sculptures," rooted in the visual and aesthetic practices of post-minimalist art. The primary output of my studio practice has been large-scale sculptural, site-sensitive installations that reference the scale of the body as it is reproduced in and through the national. I am very inspired by the metaphorical and allegorical potential of skin - maps as the skin of the nation, and the skin of monuments as a dense palimpsest of accumulated meanings over time. In my projects, I work with skin-like materials, such as latex and silicone rubber, hog gut, handmade paper, translucent fabric encased in wax, and so on.

In addition to my studio practice, I have founded the Transdiaspora Project, an ongoing series of curated exhibits that seek to bring together artists from multiple diasporic locations around overlapping themes. My creative practice is a symbiosis of research, studio practice, and curatorial projects.

As filmmaker Mira Nair has noted, "The more specific and more local the story you tell, the more universal it becomes." This is a significant post-universalist call in the highly globalized and interconnected world that we live in. I believe that as a cultural producer, while I definitely have a specific and situated location, I also have the ability to create work that exceeds it to create empathetic bridges between people from multiple locations. I believe that the role of transnational feminism today is to bring bridges into being even when it seems untenable to do so. Creating bridges is one of the primary motivations that sustains my creative practice as an artist, curator, and scholar.

 
BIO
 
Employment

2009-11
Visiting Assistant Professor, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN. Taught Fiber and Material Studies I and II.

2010-11 Adjunct Instructor, Sculpture, College of Visual Arts, St. Paul, MN. Taught Mold-making and Casting, and a studio seminar on the Body.

Education

2009      M.A. Visual Culture and Gender Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2008      M.F.A. Studio Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2005      B.S. in Fine Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Selected Solo/Two-person Exhibitions

2013
New works, Sunderland Art Museum; Newcastle, England.
"The Broken Column: Architectural Spaces and Memory", VM Art gallery, Karachi, Pakistan.
"Karmaic (dis)Continuities", Banfill Locke Center for the Arts, Minneapolis, MN.

2011-12
"Remembering the Crooked Line", Rohtas 2 gallery, Lahore.
"Memory Leaks", Sanskriti gallery, New Delhi, India.
"The Broken Column: Architectural Spaces and Memory", Traffic Zone, Minneapolis, MN.
"Tamas (Darkness): A Record of 1919," Artists in Storefronts, Minneapolis, MN.

2010
"Retellings", with Baraan Ijlal, Seven Art gallery, New Delhi, India.
"Silent Waters", Las Manos gallery, Chicago, IL.

2009
"What The Body Remembers", The DoVA Temporary, Chicago, IL.
"Remembering the Crooked Line", Womandmade gallery, Chicago, IL.

2008
"Silent Waters", Class of 1925 gallery, Madison, WI.
"What The Body Remembers", Commonwealth gallery, Madison, WI.

2007
"Queering Mother India", George Mosse gallery, Madison, WI.
"Bollywood Suburbia", ARTSpace, Madison, WI.
"Reverberations", with Jenny DeCarlo, Gallery 734, Madison, WI.

2005
"Pratibimb", DeRicci gallery, Edgewood College, Madison, WI.

2004
"America - Home Away From Home", ArtBeat gallery, Madison, WI.

2003
"Un/Self", Jackie Macaulay gallery, Madison, WI.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2013
Title TBD, The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN
"Admire," Form and Content gallery, Minneapolis, MN
"Rework," Northrup King gallery, Minneapolis, MN

2011-12
"What Rules?" Nature Morte gallery, Berlin, Germany; The Guild gallery, Mumbai, India.
"Erasing Borders", Queens Museum, NY; Crossing Art gallery, Queens, NY. Organized by
Indo-American Arts Council.
"Dimensions of Indigenous", Intermedia Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN.
"Geographies", Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, Fridley, MN.
"A Decade On", Playwrights Center, Minneapolis, MN.
"The Original Show", Flow Art Space, Minneapolis, MN.
"International America: National Identity in Flux", Tejas gallery, Dayton, OH.

2010
"Fire Power", Hunterdon Art Museum, New Jersey, NJ.
"Story Time", Islip Art Museum, Long Island, NY.
"Velocity: Rate of Change of Position", Function 13 gallery, Toronto, ON, Canada.
"Foot in the Door", Minneapolis Institute of the Arts museum, MN.
"The Remodernist Show", Las Manos gallery, Chicago, IL.
"Erasing Borders", The Guild, NY; Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, NJ; Twelve Gates gallery,
PA. Organized by Indo-American Arts Council as a traveling exhibit.
"Prints: Now in 3D!", Minneapolis Center for Book Arts, MN.
"Roots... Regions and Reasons", Zanbeel Art gallery, Santa Monica, CA.
International mail art exhibit, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA.

2009
"Strung, Hung, Drawn, and Quartered", curated by Amina Begum Ahmed as part of
"Engendered" festival, Halvai gallery, SoHo, NY.
"Erasing Borders", Queens Museum, NY; Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Manhattan, NY;
Dowd Fine Arts Center, Cortland, NY; Penn College, Pittsburg, PA. Organized by Indo-
American Arts Council as a traveling exhibit of South Asian diaspora art in America.
"Asian Contemporary Art Week", Crossing Art gallery, Queens, NY. Organized by Asia Art
Society and Museum, New York, NY.
Annual Faculty Art Exhibit, Jane Wallace Fine Arts Center, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN.
"Gema: Dando A Luz Al Arte de Mujer", Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio, TX.
"Women Imaging Women: A Study of Female Portraiture", State Street gallery, Robert Morris
College, Chicago, IL.
"Healing Power of Art", The Art Center of Highland Park, Chicago, IL.

2008
National Paper Triennial, Brodsky Center, Rutgers University, NJ.
Chicago Women's Caucus for the Arts Regional Biennial, juried by Beate Minkovski, ARC
gallery, Chicago, IL.
"Allure of the Multiple", George Mosse gallery, Madison, WI.

2007
National Prize show juried by Thomas W. Lentz, Director of the Harvard University Art
Museums, Cambridge Art gallery, Cambridge, MA.
"Women's Works 2007", juried by Judy Chicago, Crystal Lake, IL.
10th International Open, Womanmade Gallery, Chicago, IL.
"The Nature of Duality", Brennan gallery, Jersey City, NJ.
"Au Naturel", juried show in Clatstop College, Astoria, OR.
"Daughters of Sappho", juried international show, Gay Arts Center, Milwaukee, WI.
"Intersectionalities: The Feminist in Art", Pyle Center, Madison, WI.

2006
Barrow and Juarez gallery, Milwaukee, WI.
Porter Butts gallery, Madison, WI.

2005
"Her Mark", Womanmade gallery, Chicago, IL.
"Layered Intentions", Overture Community Galleries, Madison, WI.
"Grief/Trauma", Steenbock gallery, Wisconsin Academy, Madison, WI.
"Love: Lost & Found", Hue Art gallery, Madison, WI.

2004
"Collaborations", Wisconsin Academy, Madison, WI.

2003
"Time Capsule", Paine Art Center, Oshkosh, WI.
"War & Peace - Artists' Voices", gallery 218, Milwaukee, WI.

Selected Fellowships, Grants and Awards

2012
Jerome Forecast Public Art Planning Grant.

2011
American Institute of Indian Studies, Creative Arts Fellowship.
Minnesota State Arts Board, Artist Initiative Project grant.

2010
Lighton International Artists Exchange Program grant.

2009
Wisconsin Arts Board grant, Madison, Wisconsin.
Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission grant.
BLINK public art grant, City of Madison Arts Commission.

2008
Vilas International Travel Fellowship, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

2007
City of Madison Arts Commission Project grant.
David and Edith Sinaiko Frank Fellowship for a Woman in the Arts, University of Wisconsin.

Curatorial Projects

2009
"Cultural Memory: Transdiasporic Art Practices" exhibit at Womanmade gallery, Chicago, IL.

2007
"Visceral Mappings: Transdiasporic Art Practices", exhibit at the Dellora Norris Cultural Arts
Center, St. Charles, IL and at the Pyle Center in Madison, WI.

2006
"Diasporic Art Practices", exhibit in Gallery 734, Madison, WI, as part of the Trans: Visual
Culture conference.

Visiting Artist Residencies

2012
Visiting Artist, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan.

2011
Visiting Artist-in-Residence, Sanskriti Foundation, New Delhi, India.

2010
Iron Pour Residency, Franconia Sculpture Park, MN.

2009
Kiln God Residency, Watershed Ceramics Art Center, ME.
Visiting Artist-in-Residence, Minneapolis Center for Book Arts, MN.

Bibliography

2012
Review of solo show at Rohtas 2 gallery, Pakistan, by Quddus Mirza in The News, titled "Of
Kites, Kurties, and Cartography".
Article by Dylan Thomas in The Southwest Journal, Minneapolis, titled "Geography and
Identity".
Essay titled "Partition in Memoriam" by Jacque Micieli, in Encounters: an International Journal
for the Study of Culture and Society.
Retrospective catalog forthcoming for the "Partition Memorial Project".

2011
Essay titled "Subaltern Remembrances" by Jacque Micieli in Women's Memory Work
conference publication.
Review of "Dimensions of Indigenous" by Sheila Regan in City Pages, Minneapolis.

2010
Curatorial essay by Mary Birmingham in catalog of "Erasing Borders", 2010 exhibit, published
by Indo-American Arts Council.
Review of "Retellings" exhibit in the Indian Express, The Statesman, and Time Out Delhi
magazine.
Review "Prints: Now in 3D!" exhibit by Kerry Anne Morgan of for the Mid American Print
Council Journal.

2009
Catalog essay of "Engendered" exhibit, by Amina Begum Ahmed.
Catalog essay by Nisha Kommatam in exhibit catalog for "What the Body Remembers" solo
exhibit in DoVA Temporary.
Curatorial essay by Vijay Kumar in catalog of "Erasing Borders", 2009 exhibit, published by
Indo-American Arts Council.

2008
Articles about "Silent Waters" solo exhibit in Badger Herald and Isthmus.

2007
Article published in the August issue of "Susceptible to Images" magazine.

2006
Article published in the December issue of Asian Wisconzine.
 
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