Sutapa Biswas: Lumen

8 October 2021

Housewives with Steak-Knives (detail; 1983–85), Sutapa Biswas. Photo: Andy Keate; © Sutapa Biswas. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2020

This survey of the Indian-born artist’s work at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (16 October–30 January 2022), begins with her contributions to the anti-racist activism of the British art scene in the 1980s; key early paintings such as Housewives with Steak-knives (1983–85) – a self-portrait, in the guise of the multi-armed Hindu Goddess Kali – are shown alongside films and works on paper from the era. The display extends to Biswas’s more recent explorations of memory and community – including a new commission, Lumen, which narrates a fictional journey inspired by the artist’s own experience of migration. Find out more from Kettle’s Yard’s website.

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Kali (1983–85), Sutapa Biswas.

Kali (1983–85), Sutapa Biswas. © Tate.

Synapse II (Part I of a diptych) (1987–91), Sutapa Biswas.

Synapse II (Part I of a diptych) (1987–91), Sutapa Biswas. © Sutapa Biswas. All rights reserved, DACS 2021

Lumen (film still; 2021), Sutapa Biswas.

Lumen (film still; 2021), Sutapa Biswas. Photo: Carlotta Cardana; © Sutapa Biswas. All rights reserved, DACS 2021

Housewives with Steak-Knives (1983–85), Sutapa Biswas.

Housewives with Steak-Knives (1983–85), Sutapa Biswas. Photo: Andy Keate; © Sutapa Biswas. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2020