Early life and education
Sen was born in 1971 in West Bengal and obtained Bachelor's and Master's degrees in painting from Kala Bhavan atWork
Sen’s conceptual practice with a varied set of surfaces, materials, and processes that emerge in the wake of her regular negotiations with her milieu. Her work often deals with the complexities of the body in its physical, basal, erotic and sexless forms. A lot of her works deal with the self as a matrix of identities and myths – questioning societal norms, fixed beliefs, and categorisations. Sen's material art work, which she calls “byproducts” of her larger process, contrast scale, imagery and genre to problematize existing notions of hospitality, sexuality, communication, and contract. Known for her often erotically and emotionally charged imagery, Sen’s work blurs the line between distance and intimacy, often explored through what she calls “radical hospitality”. Using the virtual and the real forms of social relation and individual experience, both spontaneous and premeditated, Sen creates work fundamentally as a performer. Many of her performance-based works challenge the notion of language as a proprietary means of communication, attempting to outsmart linguistic hegemonies and codes of propriety by creating an abstract body of gibberish text she calls “non-language”. Non-language, whose use creates moments of what Sen calls “lingual anarchy” employs glitch, noise, sonic affect in its spontaneous creation. Before turning to the aporias of non-communicative language, Sen was a practicing poet in Bengali. Sen’s recent works extend from the promise of language and community to the legality of contract, opening up questions caught between law and living.Career and exhibitions
Sen was the first artist to be awarded The Skoda Prize in 2010 for Indian contemporary art. In 2015, she also won the Prudential Eye Award for the Best Emerging Artist Using Drawing. Her selected exhibitions and projects include:Solo exhibitions
* 'UnMYthU , Byproducts of twenty years of performance', Chemould, Mumbai, 2018 * Mit i sny (Myth and Dreams), City Gallery Arsenal, Poznan, Poland 2018. * A ° V o i d, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, 2014 * Border Unseen, Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan USA, 2014 * Devoid, Gallery Nathalie Obadia, Paris 2012 * In House Adoption, Gallery Steph and Nature morte, Singapore 2012 * In Transit, Espace Louis Vuitton, Taipei, Taiwan, 2011 * Black Candy (iforgotmypenisathome) Chemould, Mumbai, 2010; SAA, JNU, New Delhi 2010; Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, 2011 * Nothing lost in Translation, Nature Morte, Berlin 2010 * I Dig, I Look Down at Albion Gallery, London, in 2008 * Half Full – Part I at Bose Pacia, New York, in 2007 * It's Good to be Queen at Bose Pacia Artist Space, New York, in 2006 * I Hate Pink, Lakeeren Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2003 * Unbelongings, Machintosh Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland, 2001Solo Performances / Projects
* (Un)mansplaining, Venice, 2019 * Lunch is Cancelled, Shalini Passi Art Foundation, India Art Fair, New Delhi, 2019 * 100 (Un)Silent Ways, Speaker's Forum, India Art Fair, New Delhi, 2019 * UNhome in City IF Angels, 18th Streets Art Center Los Angeles, USA, 2017 * Mis(s)Guide, PEM (Peebody Essex Museum) Salem, USA, 2016 * Aphasia, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum & Asia Society Museum, New York, 2016 * Tongue that won't stop wounding, After Midnight, Queens Museum, New York City * I have only one language; it is not mine, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, 2014. * Shop Lifting, Art Chennai, Chennai, 2014. * I am a Poet, Word. Sound. Power, Performance at Khoj Studio, Delhi, 2014.Selected group exhibitions
* Documenta 26, Kassel, Germany * APT9-9@th Asia Pacific Triennale of Contemporary art, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, Australia 2018 * Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art, FotoFest International 2018 Biennial, U.S. 2018 * Facing India, :Personal life
Sen lives and works inReferences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sen, Mithu Indian women painters Living people 1971 births Painters from West Bengal 21st-century Indian women artists