BeLonging: The Work of Indira Freitas Johnson
*Published on the occasion of Indira Johnson’s solo exhibition BeLonging: The Work of Indira Freitas Johnson at the Highland Park Art Center, 1957 Sheridan Road, Highland Park, IL 60035, www.theartcenterhp.org
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BIOGRAPHY: Indira Freitas Johnson Artist, Cultural Worker
Award winning artist, Indira Freitas Johnson’s identity has evolved as part sculptor, cultural worker, peace activist and educator. Johnson grew up in Mumbai, India, influenced by an artist father, an ardent follower of Gandhi’s teachings and a social activist mother. This combination of art and activism has been a major thread of influence that is interwoven into her art and life. It has fueled her passion and commitment to make art part of everyday life, involve local voices and communities in the art process and cultivate peace as individual action.
Over the course of Johnson’s career, she has received numerous awards and grants starting with grants from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Saint Xavier University 1965-67, which offered total financial, support and allowed her to come to the US and study for her MFA. Other awards include multiple grants from the Illinois Art Council for art excellence and project support, Kohler Company, Arts and Industry Grant, the Virginia Groot Foundation, Arts Midwest NEA and Arts International Travelling Fellowship, Art ConText, Rhode Island School of Design Museum and the Pew Charitable Trust, and the prestigious Illinois Governor’s Award for the Arts. In addition, Chicago Magazine named Johnson the 2013 Chicagoan of the Year.
Johnson’s formal art education is in Advertising Design, and she is self-taught and self-learned in sculpture. The idea of “not knowing” and being open to different alternatives heightened her learning, as did serendipitous events like a residency at the Kohler Factory in Wisconsin where she was exposed to metals and assemblage, the Folk Universitet in Lund, Sweden where she first started working in ceramics and the women painters of Mithila in Bihar where she learned traditional Indian folk-art practices. As her voice grew in confidence she began to experiment with other materials, freely sourcing from her cultural background, the local junkyards, the natural world and the built one.
Exhibited nationally and internationally Johnson’s work is represented in numerous private and public collections including the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile AL, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Haeinsa Temple, South Korea, City of Evanston, Evanston, IL, Chicago Transit Authority, Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, and Chicago Veteran’s Home, Chicago IL, Chicago Veteran’s Home, Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan WI, City of Evanston, and the Chicago Transit Authority.
Though residing in the US, Johnson’s yearly family visits to Mumbai, have allowed a continued involvement with the residents of a low-income community where her family has worked for over 30 years. She has been involved in design and community art projects with an innovative women’s income generating and community development organization that operates in the Golibar slum of Mumbai. She says that her work with these women has contributed much to her own spiritual growth and artistic development.
Johnson is especially well known for the far ranging Ten Thousand Ripples, Public Art, Peace, and Community Engagement (TTR), city-wide initiative which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2022. Large circles of the TTR emerging Buddhas are installed on Lake Shore Drive, Jackson Park, Ronan Park, Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park and throughout Chicago neighborhoods.
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BE Longing HERE, THERE OR ELSEWHERE?
The word ‘Belonging’ is a heavy word fraught with contradictions and dichotomies. It brings to mind questions of home, homeland and displacement which arise in multiple ways on the global terrain. As an immigrant one is always slightly out of context in this society. There are certain histories that I will never be a part of, while I am inextricably linked to others. Even my past is closed to me: the place where I came from where I thought I belonged, no longer exists. What is left instead is a wished-for reality of that past place, and the real place where I exist today. Neither quite fits as one is reminded by an often asked question Where are you really from? Who gets to decide who belongs where? And is where here or elsewhere?
I have turned this query around and instead asked a series of equally provoking questions. Where do I want to belong? Is ‘home’ the place where we belong? If so, how do we define ‘home?’ Is it a physical space, or simply a feeling of comfort, of belonging? Belonging means a connectedness to a group, family, community, nature. Exploring these concepts of self and belonging bring up related issues like attachment, rejection, regeneration, all of which surface in different ways in my work.
My newer works are biographical, nourished by bits and pieces of past memories, cultural reminders, and artefacts. Memory and the act of remembering, play a significant role weaving through feelings of comfort and loss, displacement, and reclamation. I’ve included key works from previous years and reworked them to offer new contexts that bridge and meld past experiences with current observations. This synthesis creates an exploration of ideas about belonging that are relevant today more than ever.
I often insert slivers of Indian traditional materials, symbols, and clothing into my work as they remind me of growing up. Three of the works Love Letters, An Abundance of Love and Forced Embrace use a choli a traditional Indian blouse to represent me. When you wear a choli, it is only partially visible as it is partly covered by the sari. Thus, it is supposed to conceal and reveal. It’s a way to expose and lay bare the psyche that I’ve usually sought to obscure. I left home as a young woman to come to the US to get my MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I was desperately homesick in those early years and my mom’s weekly letters helped sustain me. Years later when my mom developed Alzheimer’s, I wrote her letters on the Love Letters choli (blouse) in a slow meditative process. It was a difficult time and the process while comforting at one level also brought up concepts of self and belonging, attachment, and regeneration. Bridging the past with today’s feelings, was a union, of both states.
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The three artworks that make up the Time Warp series are biographical. They explore how memory and meaning change with time. How the relationships that exist between past and present, absence and presence and individual versus collective identity are affected by one’s self-perception and context. To me these dichotomies confirm that none of us have singular identities; instead our sense of self is a composite of belonging simultaneously in different geographies and cultures
Nature makes me feel at home. It comforts me when I feel down and invigorates my spirit with its mystery and wonder. Thus the natural world and its changing environments have become a major source of inspiration to me and many others. The universal symbols found in nature communicate a commonality of thoughts and feelings no matter where an individual is from. These symbols, play a prominent role in my work as a means to discover, interpret and balance the world around me. In particular, hands and feet, symbols that have appeared in practically every culture since the dawn of civilization, continue to dominate my work. The hand, the most symbolically expressive part of the human body is the principal way that work is accomplished and signifies the action of karma. For me the hand is a symbol of caring, nurturing, embracing, and comforting.
The foot, a familiar symbol in South Asian countries is used as an invitation to various deities. Alternately, in the West we follow in the footsteps of people we admire. I use the foot as a literal symbol indicating my journey towards self-knowledge and my commitment to a spiritual path. We stand and walk with our feet, which gives us stability and grounds us to the earth. Energy pathways are said to exist throughout our body beginning and ending at our hands and feet guiding us towards spiritual growth and self-knowledge. Throughout my work, I have tried to evolve a vocabulary of signs to express the human relationship to the universe.
Natural materials connect me to home. While we do not have the same flora or fauna in Mumbai as in North America, there is a similarity of pattern and color that is an undeniable connection. The graceful lines of corkscrew willow branches weave in and out of In Search of Sakti, the female principal of divine energy. Hickory bark from An Abundance of Love, with its extravagantly beautiful patterns recalls both absence and presence highlighting the transitional nature of all life.
Growing up, re-use and repurposing was a constant practice in our home. This comes naturally to me – the use of objects that for the most part are invisible, camouflaged by functionality and domesticity, and thoughtlessly discarded with the breakdown of their function. I enjoy the challenge of combining disparate objects to create a new form, one which still retains vestiges of its original identity yet containing different qualities; figurative, conceptual, experiential. .
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Creative repurposing opens possibilities of seeing the world in different ways, with different points of view. If we can change one thing into another, what else can we change? Water Diviner and Chimera take totally unrelated objects combining them to birth new meanings, new associations, narratives, and energies. In some ways they seem to have come home with a renewed energy and sensibility functioning physically as well as spiritually, reinforcing the idea of the sacredness of everyday life.
Finding peace within oneself is intricately tied with identity. And peace with oneself is key to belonging to oneself. My continuing use of symbols as change agents led me to the emerging Buddha as a symbol of my search for peace and self-realization. I have used this image as a universal symbol of enlightenment and a reminder of our own spiritual potential The fragment of a Buddha sculpture juxtaposed with found objects resonates with the insuppressible human longing for peace and contentment. With the two Buddhas from Resilience, I’ve highlighted their imperfections and combined them with burnt wood and mangled mesh among other things to demonstrate the beauty of struggle and triumph.
I grew up in a predominant female family with my parents, five sisters and numerous aunts. The female body is the one I know and love and is another connection to home. Indian philosophy believes that the body is a shrine for the spirit encompassing a balance of natural elements and forces. I’ve used the female body to create a form that celebrates the spirit that survives life’s overwhelming odds. Can You See Me Now? reverberates with triumph and power demanding reflection and acknowledgement.
Because my formal arts training was in advertising design, words have a very special meaning for me. Text is language as well as visual art. Belonging is pedaled in the consumer society as something to purchase. Enough and Understanding More is about my own anxiety of where we are today. It’s tragic to consider that after all the progress we have made its still difficult for us to live together peacefully. Forced Embrace makes that crystal clear. I thought how ironic it is that the two countries that I align myself most closely with India and the US, both have nuclear capabilities and are proud of it. How can I articulate that even though I am a citizen of both countries this has not been in my name. I start to write the words of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. on my choli (blouse) like a mantra, again and again as if the repetition could change the situation.
The textile works in BeLonging are fabricated by the women artisans of Marketplace: Handwork of India (MP), an innovative fair trade, not-for-profit organization that operates in the Golibar slum of Mumbai and promotes economic development and personal empowerment. I usually travel to India once a year and am privileged to facilitate group art projects with the women artisans in this community where my family has worked for over forty years. We have now each become part of a larger extended family.
In the search for identity and balance and finding one’s way along this meandering path comes the realization that there is no singular fixed place where one belongs. Instead, there are highs and lows and most importantly the growth of self-knowledge that makes us secure in who we are and where we belong.
by: Indira Freitas Johnson
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A Bridge to BeLonging
Indira Freitas Johnson is described as part sculptor, cultural worker, peace activist, and educator. Similarly, her work does not fit into one category, genre, or interest. Johnson’s solo exhibition at The Art Center Highland Park, BeLonging, combines an ethereal ‘longing’ with a tangible sense of ‘being,’ approaching definitions of identity with duality and depth.
Johnson’s work reflects the experiences of being an immigrant, always existing in a state of flux, straddling two places, revealing how the political is always personal, especially adjusting to a new country with different societal norms and customs. The work in BeLonging exudes an emptiness that comes from leaving family behind, always missing a piece of your history that lingers even as you integrate into a new culture, questioning whether that integration negates what is left behind. For example, in the piece, Love Letters (2023), Johnson places a stitched choli/blouse shaped into a form of a torso on an open tree trunk, adorned with mirrors. This powerful piece holds multiple meanings. An indigenous tree is rooted in one place, yet by placing the woman’s form on the tree, Johnson grounds her to that place as well. Johnson goes further and deeper creating the woman’s torso with long looping arms made of saris wrapped indefinitely around each other in an infinite embrace. The result examines identity, nature, and connection.
Johnson’s work using deconstructed rifles as an artistic material is approached with sensitivity as Highland Park approaches the first anniversary of a mass shooting on the 4th of July. The objective of these works is what Johnson describes as, “nonviolence through art.” Peace and violence are recurring themes in Johnson’s work, attempting to reconcile the proliferation of nuclear warfare in both India and America, examining how citizens live under the cloud of collective trauma. Johnson profoundly shows the struggles of belonging to cultures and loving our countries that are filled with the extreme propensities for violence.
Johnson is a visionary whose work binds the body into nature. From the fragility of fabric to the bending of wire into hands and feet, the recurring theme merges material and form, to reflect the cycle of life. She states: “Hands and feet, symbols that appear in practically every culture since the dawn of civilization, continue to dominate my work. Hands are the principal way that work is accomplished and signify the action of karma. We stand and walk with our feet, which gives us stability and grounds us to the earth.” As a result, existence becomes the bridge itself between two cultures linking place and person, body and spirit. This exhibit walks us through those spaces in the quiet reverie of BeLonging to something greater than ourselves with strength and resolve as she juxtaposes the hard and gritty with grace and beauty to unravel the complexities of life.
Caren Helene Rudman, Curator The Art Center Highland Park
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The Art Center Highland Park features the art of sculptor, community artist, and nonviolence educator Indira Freitas Johnson. BeLonging, combines ethereal longing with a tangible sense of being, approaching definitions of identity and immigration with duality and depth.
Johnson is a visionary whose work binds the body into nature. From the fragility of fabric to the bending of wire into hands and feet, her recurring themes merge material and form, bridging the existence between two cultures, linking place and person, body and spirit. Belonging walks us through those spaces in the quiet reverie of belonging to something greater than ourselves, allowing us to unravel the complexities
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Can You See Me Now? II (2022)
Cast Brass, wood, mylar, rudraksha beads (holy beads), 45 x 26 x 6.5 inches, Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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Time Warp #1 (2021), Ceramic, mixed media, 30 x 30 x 8 inches
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Time Warp #2 (2021), Ceramic, mixed media, 30 x 30 x 8 inches
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Time Warp #3 (2021), Ceramic, mixed media, 30 x 30 x 8 inches
Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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Standing Tall (2006)
Ceramic, acrylic paint, found objects 24 x 12 x 8 inches
Water Diviner II (2023)
Ceramic, mixed media
16 x 12 x 10 inches
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In Search of Sakti (2009), Poultry wire, bedsprings, sandalwood garlands 8 x10 x5 feet
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Searching (2018), Chicken wire, torn block print, 58 x 45 x 15 inches
20 In Search of Sakti II (2023) Poultry wire, corkscrew willow branches, traditional mirrors, 5 x 8 x 4 feet, Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
Chimera (2023)
Driftwood, metal, ceramic 19 x 16 x 10 inches
Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
Protection (2023)
Chicken wire, papier-mâché, acrylic paint, bark, iron 80 x 19 x 10 inches
Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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Karmic Space (2023), Ceramic, stains, oxides bark metal, 50 x 37 x 10 inches, Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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Seeing
Eye to Eye (2023)
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Ceramic,
acrylic paint, mixed media, 20 x 39 x
inches, Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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Baggage Cart 1 (2001), Ceramic, acrylic paint, 16 x 24 x 15 inches
Don’t Let Go (2023)
Ceramic, acrylic paint, mixed media 40 x 16 x 13 inches
Boundless Spirit (2016)
Ceramic, Mixed media, acrylic paint 22 x 22 x 15 inches
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A Question of Balance (2023), Mixed media, 48 x 36 x 15 inches
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Upward Mobility (2019), Ceramic, Espaliered tree, papier-mâché, 39 x 40 x 10 inches
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Spirit Engagement (2019), Ceramic, Espaliered tree, papier-mâché, 5 x 3 x 10 inches
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Karmic Energy
Rebooted, #2 (2003), Ceramic, mixed media. 24 x 20 x 16 inches
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Resilience (2022), Ceramic, mixed media, 24 x 15 x 15 inches, Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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Resilience II (2022), Ceramic, mixed media, 24 x 15 x 15 inches, Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
32 Circular Thinking (2018), Found objects, 48 x 22 x 9 inches
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Love Letters (2023)
Stitched choli/blouse, embroidery, wood, mirrors, 67 x 35 x 20 inches, Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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An Abundance of Love (2023)
Photographs stitched on to cotton, embroidery, earth, ceramic, acrylic paint, 70 x 18 x 9 inches
Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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Forced Embrace (2003)
Stitched and embroidered choli (blouse) ceramic, earth, Indian and US flags, ash, 32 x 48 x 38 inches
Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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Enough (2003), Embroidery on organza, traditional mirror with tin frame, 36 x 36 inches
Wanting More (2003), Ink and embroidery on organza 36 x 40 inches
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Prayer #1 From Virtue and Vice Series (2003), Ink and embroidery on organza, 18 X 16 inches
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Who Makes Peace? (2003), Ink drawing stitched and embroidered organza and other fabric, 40 x 40 inches
The Butterfly Effect (2021)
Decommissioned gun, mixed media
37.5 x 15 x 6.5 inches
Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
Can You Hear Me Now? (2021)
Decommissioned gun, mixed media
22.5 x 13 x 3 inches
Photo credit: Yancey Hughes
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The In Between (2021), Decommissioned gun, mixed media, 25 x 15 x 3 inches
As a peace activist and proponent of nonviolence practice I have been saddened by the increase of gun violence and our inability to come to grips with this issue. The idea of emptying and transforming guns as part of my art assemblage and thematic journey has been with me for the last couple of years. I believe this would be a way to encourage dialog, generate a more complex understanding of gun related violence and stimulate thinking about the place and role of guns in our culture.
Upon learning about the “buyback” program that Evanston initiated I approached the Evanston Police Department with the idea of using some of these guns to recontextualize them. Through a pairing with common household, mechanical and natural objects the piece I hope to stimulate a discussion around guns and nonviolent action. I am grateful to the Evanston Police Department who took apart, emptied, and decommissioned the long guns that I’ve used in The Space Between. This is the first part of the Visible and Invisible city-wide community Initiative that will explore the tangible effects of invisible violence as it manifests itself in everyday life; our homes, schools, workspaces, and media. I want these works to show the complexity of the gun issue and open a discussion about the different aspects of violence and how we can each find our own way to advocate for nonviolent action.
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INDIRA FREITAS JOHNSON
917 Fowler Ave, Evanston IL 60202
johnsonindira@gmail.com www.indirajohnson.com
PUBLIC ART INITIATIVES
2022
Community Blessings, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
Change Just One Thing, Latin School, Chicago, IL
2020 Hand in Hand, Chicago Veteran’s Home, Chicago, IL
Community Blessings, Evanston, IL in conjunction with The Peace Studio
2018 Journey Into Possibilities, University of Illinois, Champagne, IL
2017
Nya Dishtri II (New Vision), SHARE, Golibar Slum, Mumbai
2016 King Day: Lift Every Voice, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2015 Overlapping Connections, Chicago Transit Authority, Cermak/Chinatown 18th Street Station
2014 SOS Questions Not Answered, Chicago Sculpture International and Chicago Park District
2013/14 I Can’t, Yes, I Can, Golibar, Mumbai
2012
*Ten Thousand Ripples, a city-wide Public Art project, Ten Chicago area communities
2008 Conversations: Here and Now, City of Evanston Public Art
2007 Where Sky Meets Water, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs’ Public Art Program
2003 *Enough; Indira Freitas Johnson and Voices from around the World, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
2001
*FREENOTFREE, Public Art project, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI
*Voices of Shakti; The Ongoing Struggle, DePaul University, Chicago,
SELECTED SOLO & TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS:
2008
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IL
*Catalogues 2023 BeLonging: The Work of Indira Freitas Johnson, The Art Center Highland Park, Highland Park, IL 2022 A Gathering of Energies, Cultivator, Morris, IL 2021 The Resonance of Emptiness, Evanston Art Center 2019 Indira and Karl Johnson, Koehline Museum, Des Plaines, IL 2018 *Am I Really Here Riverside Art Center, Riverside, IL 2016 Material Visions, The Art of Karl and Indira Johnson, Swedish Museum, Chicago, IL 2015 From Here To There:
Links and Chains, Kaskaskia College, Centralia, IL
2012 *Ten Thousand Ripples, a city-wide Public Art project Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, IL
MI
Nature’s Duality (2 person) College of Lake County, Grays Lake, IL Art and Peace, A Lifetime Together (2 person) Noyes Cultural Art Center, Evanston, IL
Opposition and Unity, Parkland College Gallery, Champaign, IL
*Energy Reboot: The Art of Indira Freitas Johnson, Krasl Art Center, St. Joseph,
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2009
Karmic Space
Outdoor Installation, Highland Park Art Center, IL Satyagraha, Holding Fast to Truth, Chicago Public Library, Chicago, IL
The Uncertainty of Truth, Walsh Gallery, Chicago, Il.
Indira Freitas Johnson, A Merging of two Cultures, Contemporary Arts Center, Peoria, IL
Transforming Materials, Uniting the Physical and the Spiritual, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL
2007 Lifetime Offer, Dimensions Variable, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Il
2006
2004
Indira Freitas Johnson and Voices from around the World, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Process of Karma, Indianapolis Art Center Indianapolis IN
FREENOTFREE, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI
2003 Enough;
2001
2001
of Shakti; Pain,
Harvard University, Cambridge,
Freitas Johnson, Death and Rebirth
Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, Vehicles of Transformation; Art Works by Indira Freitas Johnson”, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
2000 Voices
Struggle, Courage,
MA 1998 Indira
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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2022 Rockford Biennial, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL
Ten Thousand Ripples, Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park, Governors State University, IL
2021 Curator, Visible and Invisible, Noyes Cultural Center, Evanston, IL
Ten Thousand Ripples, Ronan Park, Chicago, IL
2019 Curator, Truth As Contested Concept, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL
2018 Star Woman, Skokie Sculpture Park, Skokie, IL
2017 Dreaming Bigger in Strange Times, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL
2016 Krasl Art Center’s 2016 Sculpture Biennial, St. Joseph, MI
2014 Arts/Industry: Collaborations and Revelation. Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI
2013
2011-2014
Protext: Art: When Words Enter Visual Art, Illinois Art Museum Chicago Gallery, Chicago, IL
*The Resonance of Emptiness, Haein Biennial Art project, South Korea
Discovering Strengths, Shifting Perceptions, Golibar, Mumbai
*Streamlines, Ephemeral Presence in Contemporary Art, Mahaprajapati Vihar, Vaishali, India
*Infinite Mirror, Images of American Identity, International Arts & Artists, A national touring exhibition
2010-11 Pathways and Portals; Art, Nature and Science, Illinois State Museum, Chicago Gallery touring (2009)
2009
798 Art Zone, Kohler Co.'s Arts/Industry Collection, Beijing, China
Erasing Borders, Indo American Arts Center, New York, NY
2007 Upon An Ether Sea, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.
2006
2005
*Art in The Garden, Public Art Installation, Grant Park, City of Chicago Park District
*Life InSight; The Human Experience, Kentucky Museum of Art & Craft, Louisville, KY
*Poetic Expression of Mortality: Figurative Ceramics from the Porter Price Collection, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
*Fatal Love, The Queens Museum, Queens, New York
*Particles and Passion, Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD
2004 *Honoring Tradition, Perceptions of Three Asian American Artists, Ball State Museum, Muncie, IN
*Masala, Diversity and Democracy in South Asian Art, William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs
2003 *Women Alive! A legacy of Social Justice, Archeworks, Chicago, IL
2002 Uniting the Community for Peace; Field Museum of Chicago
2002 *The Virginia A. Groot Foundation Exhibition, SOFA, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL
2001 Voices of Shakti; DePaul University, Chicago, IL
1996 Art in Chicago; 1945-1995, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:
Chicago Veterans Home, Chicago, IL
Chicago Transit Authority, 18th Street Station
University of Illinois Lincoln Hall Center
Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL City of Evanston, Evanston, IL
Koehline Museum of Art, Des Plaines, IL
Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, IL
Asian American Art Centre, New York NY
Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, RI
Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women, Philadelphia, PA
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile AL
Haein Temple, South Korea
Minneapolis Museum of Art
Chicago Sinai Congregation, Chicago, IL
State of Illinois Building, Chicago, IL
College of Dupage, Dupage, IL
Arkansas Arts Center, Decorative Arts Museum. Little Rock, AR
College of Lake County, Grays Lake, IL
Krasl Art Center, St. Joseph, MI
University of Illinois Law School. Carbondale, IL
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Air India Corporation. Bombay, India
Kohler Company, Sheboygan, WI
Garden/Varelli, Mumbai, India
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SELECTED HONORS &AWARDS
2022 Illinois Art Council, Special Project Grant
Together Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Chicago, IL
2021 Visible/Invisible Panel Discussion, Noyes Cultural Center
Evanston Arts Council, Community Arts Grant, Evanston, IL
2017 TEDx Talk, Columbia College, Chicago, IL
2016 Evanston Mayor’s Award for the Arts
2014 Keynote Speaker Alliance of Artist Communities Conference, Charleston, SC
2013 Chicagoan of the Year, Chicago Magazine
Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2012 Illinois Arts Council, Visual Arts Award
Raven Award for Arts and Excellence
2009 Without Borders; Global Dialog, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL
2006 Creating Dialogues through Peace, Art and Cultures, Loyola University Museum of Art
2004 Art and Nonviolence, Christian Brothers University, Memphis TN
2003 Women Alive! A legacy of Social Justice, One of 25 Chicago women selected for this award
2002 Visiting Artist Series, Artists in the City, University of Milwaukee, WI
1995 Affirming Feminist Identity Through Art and Religion, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
1994 Daughters of Revolution: Gender, Ethnicity, Art”: Cincinnati Art Museum. Cincinnati, OH
1993 Arts International Travelling Fellowship
1992 Kohler Company, Arts and Industry Grant, Sheboygan, WI
1990 Virginia Groot Foundation
EDUCATION:
Folk Universitet, Lund, Sweden
Master of Fine Arts, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Bachelor of Arts, University of Bombay, Bombay, India
Diploma, Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art, Bombay, India
1970-1972
1966-1967
1960-1964
1961-1965
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