Across a twenty-five year practice that spans South Asia, North America, and Europe, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animation, wall drawings, prints, collage, video, and sculpture. Ganesh’s oeuvre is informed by her studies in literature and semiotic theory, and rich histories of public art and graphic design in India. In detailed works, Ganesh combines a vast array of influences including South Asian iconography, science fiction and queer theory, drawing upon visual tropes of vintage comics, anime, and film posters. In nonlinear narratives and richly layered worlds, Ganesh subverts traditional storytelling to open up speculative narratives where queer and femme protagonists actively shape their futures.

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous awards, including from the Ford Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman Award, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts; the Joan Mitchell Award, the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, Pollock Krasner Foundation, and many others. She holds a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, and an MFA from Columbia University. She lives and works in Brooklyn.

Ganesh’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, USA; The Guggenheim, NY, USA; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Ford Foundation, NY, USA; University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI, USA; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA, USA; the Devi Art Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, India; the Ishara Foundation. Dubai, the Saatchi Collection, London, UK; the Tai Kwun Foundation, Hong Kong; Deutsche Bank, among others.

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts; the Art Matters Foundation; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors; and the Hodder Fellowship from the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, and a Ford Foundation Individual Artist Grant. Ganesh currently serves on the Board of Governors at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture and the Board of Directors for the Joan Mitchell Foundation.

Her major public art installation, Regeneration, is currently on view at Penn Station in New York City.