Contemporary figurative painter Mequitta Ahuja is of African American and Indian American descent. She aims to reframe self-portraiture as a creative endeavour rather than a test of identity. She refers to her previous writing as automythography, a synthesis of mythology from many cultures and personal mythology. Ahuja’s work undermines the genre’s prevailing conventions by fusing ancient and new notions of self-portraiture, particularly with relation to self-portraits of women or people of colour. Poussin’s 1650 self-portrait, Velasquez’s Las Meninas, Kerry James Marshall’s work, and novelist Doris Lessing all influence the way she approaches portraiture. Ahuja also finds inspiration in Buddhist wall paintings and Mughal manuscripts. Her work raises pertinent issues regarding the power relationships that underlie the creation of images and the study of art.
Her most recent collection of work, Black-word, which will be on display in 2023, explores the genealogy of her family using both her own research and that of her deceased grandmother, who began compiling and recording the family’s history in the 1940s.
Education and Exhibitions :
Mequitta received an MFA from UIC in 2003, mentored by Kerry James Marshall. Her work has been exhibited across the U.S as well as in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, India and Dubai. Mequitta has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s 12X12, Lawndale Art Center in Houston, TX, BravinLee Programs in New York and Nathalie Obadia Gallery in Paris, France. Group exhibitions include: Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum, Houston Collects African American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Poets and Painters at the Ulrich Museum in Wichita, KS, “Undercover” at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and Usable Pasts at the Studio Museum in Harlem. In addition to exhibition catalogues, Mequitta’s work has appeared in Modern Painters, March 2007 and Art News, February 2007. In February 2010, Mequitta was profiled as an “Artist to Watch” in ArtNews. Holland Cotter, art critic of the New York Times, in his “last chance” article in the June 1, 2007 edition of the Times,sighting Mequitta’s NY debut exhibition Encounters, stated “Referring to the artist’s African-American and East Indian background, the pictures turn marginality into a regal condition.”
Courtesy: Google art and culture
Off the Edge:
This painting “Off the Edge” depicts Ahuja moving boldly across the field while holding a remote shutter control in her hand. Ahuja’s position is majestuous and her backdrop is ambiguous (an ambiguous combination of landscape, hair, and galaxy imagery), both of which are borrowings from Dutch portraiture norms. Off the Edge promotes identity as a performing art. By appropriating a position from the history of art and making a reference to her usage of photography, Ahuja emphasises this process. The hand-held remote shutter control stands out in the composition since Ahuja starts a piece by using it to take studio shots of herself. The corded shutter control prompts you to remember that Off the Edge is a self-portrait even if you might not first be aware of it.
Feature Image Courtesy: Aicon Art
Courtesy: Google arts and culture
Pratiksha is an art enthusiast and writer.
