Mequitta Ahuja,
2005
Mequitta Ahuja is a contemporary American painter of African American and Asian Indian descent who resides in Baltimore, Maryland. To create her paintings, Ahuja relies on a three-step process that involves performance, photography, and drawing/painting. Ahuja begins by developing a series of performances involving costumes, props, and poses. With the aid of a remote shutter, she then photographs her performances and documents them as "non-fictional source material." Finally, she incorporates these photographs into her invented material, resulting in her completed self-portraits. In 2007, Ahuja was included in the exhibition Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and in 2009 her painting Dream Region was featured as the cover of the book War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art in which the artist was featured. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States as well as in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, India and Dubai, and she has been the recipient of multiple awards for her art, including the Tiffany Foundation Award in 2007, a 2009 Joan Mitchell Award, and a 2008 Houston Artadia Prize.
