Saumitra chandratreya

Bio

Born and raised in Mumbai, Saumitra Chandratreya is a Fiber-Installation artist who lives in St. Petersburg, FL and Chicago, IL. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017 with a Master of Design in Fashion, Body and Garment. He has a BFA in Textile Design from the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Bengaluru, India.

Chandratreya was awarded one of the Individual Artist Grants from St. Petersburg Arts Alliance in 2020, Emerging Artist Grants from Creative Pinellas in 2018 and he was one of the emerging artists at the 2019 Gasparilla Festival of Arts in Tampa, FL. Chandratreya was one of the selected artists for Inaugural Qinfolk Festival in Ithaca, NY in 2019. He was one of the Finalists who exhibited at the Union League Club of Chicago for Luminarts Cultural Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship Show. Chandratreya was awarded the Shapiro Graduate research fellowship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was nominated by his department for the James Nelson Raymond Fellowship while studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His works have been collected nationally and internationally in private and public collections. His art has been written about in the local media. Chandratreya has shown in group and solo shows in Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, and United states. Chandratreya’s work has been exhibited at the John and Mable ringing Museum among other institutions. Chandratreya is an active member of 24-Hands Printmaking collective and Collate Printmaking Collective. He is a Full Time Visiting Artist at SAIC for 2024-2025 school year.

Artist Statement

My practice celebrates my identity as a queer, non-binary, immigrant person in the United States. Having lived in Florida for the past 6 years, my mere existence seemed criminal in the eyes of the state. I have been working on a series of self portraits which began as a protest against the 2022 Don’t Say Gay bill filed and passed by the Florida Legislature, and signed by the governor. I am creating these self portraits by blending selfies with my neighborhood foliage that makes me nostalgic about my first home, and ancestral architecture. I use Photography, Silk Screening, Hand Drawing, and Hand Embroidery to create this work. I use the visual signs of human life invading natural spaces as a metaphor for the state invading and invalidating LGBTQIA+ people. The completed portraits can be seen on this website in recent work in the form of - West of the Moon, Window Clouds, and Royal Poinciana Reflections. Through this work I am also investigating queer gaze. I take pictures through the front facing camera and of my reflections in mirrors and windows and then I manipulate them. I use cyanotype as a base layer to print these pictures. I use hand drawing, embroidery and silk screen to add layers.

I present my work in an installation form as well where I use found objects that I alter and objects I create - Colonial Fetish is an example of this. Apart from the mediums mentioned earlier, I also use Weaving and Dyeing cloth as mediums in my practice. I make pieces that use beauty as a device to frame everyday banal experiences. I enjoy tracking my routines. I use imagery derived from these routines to make visual guides to my life - the works Analogous Movement and Sky Paths are derived from my running maps.