a rainy day at the national museum of women in the arts

identity, culture, and the ongoing fight for equality in creative spaces.

I love spending a grey day wandering through a museum.

And so it was with great comfort that I found Suchitra Mattai’s exhibit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts during a long stretch of rain.

Mattai’s Myth to Matter reminds me of the history stored in my family’s closets.

Vintage saris are transformed into sculptures that connect her South Asian and Guyanese roots.

Suchitra Mattai: she arose (from a pool of tears)

Many works use two figures. In Double Helix (bottom right), Mattai layers the past and present and the experience of living between multiple identities.

Suchitra Mattai. left: sweet surrender; top right: a woman we never knew but loved all the same; bottom right: double helix

Then I found Amy Sherald's Well Prepared and Maladjusted (bottom left). It captures that familiar tension between feeling ready to face the world and not quite fitting in.

top left + right: Sonya Clark, ties that bind; bottom left: Amy Sherald, well prepared & maladjusted; bottom right: Hung Liu, winter and summer with cynical fish

The Museum’s short films spotlighted Sonya Clark and other artists’ creative processes. Each vignette closes with a question. I was particularly moved to consider, “What do you do for you and you alone?”

I keep thinking about how the anonymous Guerrilla Girls, donning gorilla masks, call out racism, sexism, and corruption in the art world. Their poster art, The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist, include “working without the pressure of success” and “being reassured that whatever kind of art you make it will be labeled feminine.”

The fight for equality in creative spaces is ongoing.

from the series “guerrilla girls talk back: the first five years, 1985-1990”

photo credit | pooja mehta, 2024