As a conceptual artist, Biswas works in a variety of mediums, including performance, film, photography[4] and installation.[2] During the 1980s, Biswas was primarily a painter.[5] For instance, her paintings Housewives with Steak-Knives (1985) and Through Rose-Tinted Windows form part of the Bradford Museums and Galleries permanent collections on display at
Cartwright Hall.[6] She also worked in video. Kali (1984) is a thirty-minute video that the artist made while a student at the University of Leeds. It documents a performance by the artist as
Kali and her fellow student as
Ravan. Kali – whose name means the ‘black one’ – is the
Hindu goddess of time and change and within
Hindu mythology she was created to inhabit more than one representation (hence her multiple appearances in the performance) to rid the world of evil, which is here embodied by
Ravan. Biswas often draws from myths and iconography from ancient Hindu mythologies, speaking of the symbolism she says 'I want people to research into my culture, as I've been doing into European and Western culture'.[7] In 1985, Biswas's work was exhibited at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, in the exhibition The Thin Black Line, an exhibition of young Black and Asian women artists curated by
Lubaina Himid.[8]
Sutapa Biswas's works often reflect on questions of gender and cultural and ethnic identity.[9] For instance, her film Birdsong captures the story of young Indian boy who longs to own a horse and is filmed against the backdrop of an English period home.[10] Biswas is also keen to use humour and satire in her work.[7] In her painting 'The Last Mango in Paris' depicting two women talking and peeling mangos the caption below reads. M: 'If you were to be re-born, and had a choice what would you come back as?' B: 'If I were to be reborn again, I would be born an English dog, because in England they look after their dogs really well.'[7] She is keen to use her work as a platform for people to begin to address their own racism. Biswas was the 2008 Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the
Yale Centre for British Art, and is a European Photography Award nominee. She is currently a Reader
Fine Art at
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.[11]
Collections
Biswas' work is held in the following public collection:
1987 The Image Employed: The Use of Narrative in Black Art[13]
1988 Along the Lines of Resistance: an Exhibition of Contemporary Feminist Art, [Selected by Sutapa Biswas, Sarah Edge and Clare Slattery], Cooper Gallery, Barnsley [13]
1989 The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-War Britain,
Hayward Gallery, London[13]
1990 Disputed Identities, Camerawork, San Francisco[13]
1992 Fine Material for a Dream...?: A Reappraisal of Orientalism: 19th & 20th Century Fine Art and Popular Culture Juxtaposed with Paintings, Video and Photography by Contemporary Artists,
Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston [13]
^
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvKeen, Melanie. (1996). Recordings : a select bibliography of contemporary African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian British art. Ward, Elizabeth., Chelsea College of Art and Design., Institute of International Visual Arts. London: Institute of International Visual Arts and Chelsea College of Art and Design.
ISBN1-899846-06-9.
OCLC36076932.