Sukanya Rahman was born in Calcutta, India.  She studied painting at the College of Art in New Delhi and at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris on a French Government scholarship. She also studied dance at the Martha Graham School in New York.  Her entrance into the world of visual arts has followed a circuitous route starting with a career as an Indian classical dancer. Her memoir, Dancing in The Family,  first published by HarperCollins/India, has been hailed as “a gem in the history of Indian dance.”

Color and movement are primary jumping off points for Sukanya’s artwork. Her digital assemblages and mixed media constructions are juxtapositions of the multiple layers of her own life.  Her works explore the complex and often contradictory perceptions of Indian womanhood and the contrasting perspectives of humor and spirituality, ancient and modern, East and West.  Vying for center stage, and often in conflict,  are Hindu gods and goddesses, Indian movie stars, political figures and American cartoon heroes. Choreography, theatre,  narrative,  elements of the vibrant popular art of India and American pop images creep unconsciously and insidiously into her work – a coming together of fragments of scattered images and memories: a collision and a reconciliation of her two worlds and cultures.

Select Exhibitions:

Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, Michigan, August 2009

M.F Husain Gallery, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India  January 2009

Queens Museum of Art,  Flushing, NY October 2008

William Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, CT, January 2004 (part of permanent collection)

Vadehra Gallery, New Delhi, India  January 2004

Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi, India December 2003

The Advocate Gallery, Los Angeles, CA June 2003

Fisher Studio, Bard College, Annandale NY  June 2003

Lehman College Art Gallery, NY, NY  February 2002

Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA May 2002

Gallery Espace/Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India March 2001

Brush Gallery, Lowell, Massachusetts February 2001

Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY March 1999

South Asian Women’s Collective, Gallery 678 New York, NY March 1998

Gallery 678, New York, NY  January 1997 Davidson & Daughters Gallery, Portland, ME April 1997

 

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