Divya Mehra is a visual artist (MFA, Columbia University, New York, U.S.A.) whose research-fueled practice often explores marginalization, otherness and the empty promise of “diversity”. Through appropriating, editing and reassembling a variety of literary, comedic and musical sources, she creates an acerbic dialogue on the commandeering, consumption and construction of race and identity politics. Often foregrounding the ongoing struggle with her personal diasporic identity and cultural expectations, she calls into question our unexamined beliefs.
Research and experimentation for a museum-scale solo exhibition
Over the next ten-months of self-directed research and experimentation, and in preparation for her museum scale solo exhibition, Divya Mehra will continue to explore issues that reflect on race and identity as constructed through the concept of diversity. Often producing work in various mediums, from repurposed and outmoded signs of wealth, to sly mimicry of expected signifiers of status, Mehra’s work is informed by the struggle encountered by members of the South Asian diaspora, but also speaks to many marginalized communities.
