Material, Form, and Composition: The Layered Possibilities of Suchitra Mattai's Works in Myth From Matter

Abstract

This thesis examines the art of contemporary Indo-Guyanese American artist Suchitra Mattai (b. 1973), with particular focus on the body of work that appeared in the artist’s solo exhibition Suchitra Mattai: Myth From Matter at the National Museum of Women in the Arts from September 20th, 2024 to January 12th, 2025. I argue that Mattai’s employment of craft processes like embroidery and collage alongside materials like the sari that are visually coded as South Asian, offer a formal articulation of Indo-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean American identities as distinct facets within the broader South Asian diaspora. I also take the position that her work popularly appeals to U.S. mainstream audiences, and is therefore effective in its messaging, as part of the legacy of the early American feminist art movement. Drawing from a range of scholarship about the art/craft hierarchy, Caribbean thought, the colonial system of indenture, South Asian art history, and more, this study situates Mattai’s practice as a mediation on diasporic subjectivity that requires nuanced engagement and close looking at every level.