Suchitra Mattai: memory, myth, and colonial and patriarchal narratives

Suchitra Mattai, a multi-disciplinary artist of Indo-Caribbean descent, uses a mixed-media approach to explore how memory and myth allow us to unravel and re-imagine historical narratives. In her solo exhibition at K Contemporary’s Untitled Art Miami booth, she provides a microcosm for her material and conceptual exploration of women’s labor. Her primary pursuit is to give voice to women of the past, present, and future. The work focuses on the experiences of women from the Indo-Caribbean diaspora and beyond by employing practices and materials associated with the domestic sphere such as embroidery, weaving, and fiber.

Mattai explores how memory, myth, and oral traditions can be used to unravel colonial and patriarchal narratives. Drawing from European tapestry traditions, Indian miniature painting, and other craft-based traditions like embroidery and weaving, she imagines a “future space” where new mythologies are formed to celebrate and monumentalize the experiences and labor of brown women. Mattai learned sewing, embroidering, and other techniques from her grandmothers and, with every strip of fabric, she meditates on the lives of her maternal lineage.

In her solo exhibition ‘In the absence of power. In the presence of love’ (2023), Mattai plumbs the colonial past to imagine a world in which the historically exploited experience some of the comforts previously stolen from them. With pastel ribbons embellishing scenes of young Brown women in luxurious ballgowns, Mattai evokes today’s trend for making people of colour central characters in Regency-era entertainment, represented by popular stage musicals like Hamilton (2015–ongoing) and television shows such as Bridgerton (2020–ongoing).

Mattai also incorporates personal heirlooms while embroidering on vintage needlepoint reproductions of European paintings to reinterpret the original white subjects as Brown. Her work is now available at KContemporary Gallery in Denver.