Divya Mehra Explained

Divya Mehra
Birth Place:Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Education:Columbia University, University of Manitoba
Known For:Multimedia artist
Website:divyamehra.com

Divya Mehra (born 1981) is a Canadian artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba.[1] [2] Mehra was awarded the 2019 Wanda Koop Research Fund.[3] She received the Sobey Art Award, presented annually by the National Gallery of Canada, in 2022.[4]

Early life and education

Mehra was born Winnipeg, Canada, the second youngest of four children. She received her BFA (Honours) in Visual Arts from the University of Manitoba School of Art in Winnipeg in 2005[5] and her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University School of the Arts in New York City in 2008.[6]

Work

Mehra works in a multitude of forms, including sculpture, print, drawing, artist books, installation, advertising, performance, video and film.[7] She often uses humour as an entry to her work.[8] By pairing research and popular culture — including comics and social media — with her experience as an artist within the Indian diaspora, she creates works meant to be provocative yet humorous.[9] [10]

Selected projects

Mehra is known in part for her text-based works. One of her first of such works, Currently Fashionable, was created in 2009 and shown as a part of her exhibition, You have to tell them, I'm not a Racist first presented in 2012 at La Maison des artistes visuels francophones, in St. Boniface, Manitoba, and again in 2017 at Georgia Scherman Projects in Toronto. The text works appear in English, Hindi and French.

In 2012 Mehra was one of ten artists commissioned by MTV, MoMA PS1, and Creative Time to reimagine Art Breaks — a video series on MTV in the 1980s that first showcased video work by Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. Art Breaks 2012 featured videos by Sema Bekirovic, Cody Critcheloe, Andrew Kuo, Mads Lynnerup, Tala Madani, Mehra, Rashaad Newsome, Jani Ruscica, Mickalene Thomas, and Guido van der Werve.[11]

In 2018, Mehra was commissioned to create the Spring 2018 Canadian Art Magazine cover for the Dirty Words issue. For the cover image she recreated the set of the popular Canadian sketch comedy show, You Can't Do That On Television, and reimagined one of the infamous recurring moments when a character on set is being drenched with slime whenever they say I don't know.[12] That same issue also features an artist folio by her — entitled Tone — that explores the complexity of South Asian diasporic experiences.[13]

Mehra was the subject of a 2018 episode of the CBC Arts docuseries, In The Making. The series, hosted by Sean O’Neill, follows leading Canadian artists around the world as they bring their work to life.[14] In the series finale, Mehra travels to India to begin work on a new inflatable work — a bouncy castle Taj Mahal — that was then exhibited for the first time as a special project for Vision Exchange: Perspectives From India to Canada, which began its cross-Canada tour in September 2018.[15] The National Gallery of Canada acquired the work.

In 2023, Mehra was commissioned to create two new inflatable works for Nuit Blanche Toronto.[16]

Selected exhibitions

Selected awards

Publications

Selected Reviews & Interviews

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: "Oh My Gosh! That Would Be Bananas; - 5 Questions for Winnipeg Artist Divya Mehra". Mackenzie. Lindsay.
  2. Web site: DIVYA MEHRA. 2020-08-11. www.divyamehra.com. en-US.
  3. Web site: Abbott . Cowley . Divya Mehra Awarded the 2019 Wanda Koop Research Fund . 2024-07-16 . Canadian Art . en-US.
  4. Web site: Divya Mehra Wins Canada's Sobey Art Award . 2023-07-08 . www.artforum.com . en-US.
  5. News: Artist Divya Mehra uses humour 'to cut a tense situation'. Winnipeg Free Press. 31 March 2012. 2016-03-05. Mayes. Alison.
  6. Web site: Divya Mehra on "Quit, India" and Her Dark Comedy Artinfo. Artinfo. 2016-03-05. 2017-01-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20170116101852/http://ca.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/972554/divya-mehra-on-quit-india-and-her-dark-comedy. dead.
  7. Web site: DIVYA MEHRA. 2020-08-11. www.divyamehra.com. en-US.
  8. Web site: 'Oh my gosh! That would be bananas' — 5 questions for Winnipeg artist Divya Mehra CBC News.
  9. Web site: Divya Mehra Awarded the 2019 Wanda Koop Research Fund. 2020-08-11. Canadian Art. en-US.
  10. Web site: Together, For Better or Worse: Five Takes on Community from the Finalists in the 2017 Sobey Art Award. 2020-08-11. www.gallery.ca. en.
  11. Web site: Art Breaks. 2020-08-11. Creative Time. en-US.
  12. Web site: Balzer . David . Dirty Words: An Introduction . 2024-07-16 . Canadian Art . en-US.
  13. Web site: Spring 2018: Dirty Words . 2024-07-16 . Canadian Art . en-US.
  14. Web site: CBC Arts. November 8, 2018. Why Divya Mehra didn't want In the Making to shoot footage of the Taj Mahal. CBC Arts.
  15. Web site: CBC Gem. 2020-08-11. gem.cbc.ca.
  16. Web site: Nayyar . Rhea . 2023-09-28 . Divya Mehra Releases Canada’s Colonial Genies . 2024-07-16 . Hyperallergic . en-US.
  17. Web site: Divya Mehra and Talk Is Cheap: Our Broken Tongues. Cottingham. Steven. April 29, 2015. Canadian Art.
  18. Web site: Win Last, Don't Care. Art Gallery of Ontario. en. 2019-02-28.
  19. Web site: Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT. Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. en-CA. 2019-02-28.
  20. Web site: Divya Mehra Artspeak. en-US. 2019-02-28.
  21. News: Women Dominate Sobey Art Award Shortlist for First Time Ever. Canadian Art. 2017-09-23. en-US.
  22. Web site: The Prairies & North - Divya Mehra. Cbc.ca. 16 January 2017. 29 October 2018.
  23. Web site: Divya Mehra Awarded the 2019 Wanda Koop Research Fund. Canadian Art. en-US. 2020-04-24.
  24. Web site: Article: 2022 Sobey Art Award Exhibition . www.gallery.ca . National Gallery of Canada magazine . 19 February 2023.
  25. Web site: Spring 2018: Dirty Words.
  26. Book: Mehra, Divya. Pouring Water on a Drowning Man. As We Try and Sleep Press. 2014. 9780978394684.
  27. Book: Divya, Mehra. Pouring Water on a Drowning Man. 2014-01-01. e-artexte.ca. As We Try and Sleep Press . 9780978394684. en. 2016-03-05.
  28. Web site: QUIT, INDIA. Platform Centre. platformgallery.org. 2016-03-05.
  29. Book: Mehra, Divya. Quit, India.. PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts. 2013. 978-0-9697675-8-9. Winnipeg.
  30. News: Zoratti. Jen. 2019-08-31. Artist tackles colonialism with wit. en-CA. Winnipeg Free Press. 2020-08-11.
  31. Web site: says. Carla. 2018-11-29. Tactics and strategies of racialized artists: some notes on how to circumvent the art world's terms of inclusion · ArtsEverywhere. 2020-08-11. ArtsEverywhere. en-US.
  32. Largo. Marissa. 2018-03-04. Jamelie Hassan and Divya Mehra: Cultural Currency and Canada 150. Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas. 4. 1–2. 189–193. 10.1163/23523085-00401010.
  33. Web site: 2017-10-12. White Like Me: Encountering Divya Mehra's "You have to tell Them, i'm not a Racist". 2020-08-11. Momus. en-US.
  34. Web site: Issue 141 – March 2017. 2020-08-11. bordercrossingsmag.com. en.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Divya Mehra".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.