Sutapa Biswas

Sutapa Biswas (born 28 November 1962) is a British Indian conceptual artist, who works across a range of media including painting, drawing, film and time-based media.

Early life She was born a Mahishya family in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India, in 1962. At the age of four, she moved to London, England, with her family, Between 1981 and 1985, she studied at the University of Leeds for her BFA. and installation. 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. She also worked in video. Kali (1984) is a 30-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." 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.

Sutapa Biswas's works often reflect on questions of gender and cultural and ethnic identity. 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. Biswas is also keen to use humour and satire in her work.

Collections Biswas's work is held in the following public collection: Tate, London

Exhibitions Solo exhibitions 1987: Sutapa Biswas, Horizon Gallery, London 1992: Synapse: Sutapa Biswas, The Photographers' Gallery, London, (texts by Gilane Twaadros and David Chandler). 2021: Lumen Sutapa Biswas, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

Group exhibitions 1985: The Thin Black Line, [Selected by Lubaina Himid], Institute of Contemporary Arts, London 1986: The Issue of Painting, Rochdale Art Gallery. 2024: The Time of Our Lives, The Drawing Room, London