Biography
Sarita is an artist, activist, and art therapist, trained at the School of the Art Institute, where she received the Dean’s Scholarship to complete a Masters in Art Therapy and Counseling. As an activist and artist, Sarita has worked with feminist, non-governmental organizations, including The Melanin Collective, The Azadi Project, People Beyond Borders, Rohingya Culture Center of Chicago, and The Honeycomb Network. Sarita experiences the roles of artist, activist, and therapist as intersecting, and brings feminist, decolonial theory into her work as psychotherapist for diverse communities in the nonprofit and private sector.
As a scholar, Sarita has been invited to lecture on holistic art therapy practices with The Institute for Therapy Through the Art and The Textile Society of America. Sarita has been featured in the School of the Art Institute Magazine and the Gender at Work podcast, on which she discusses the intersection of art and activism. Sarita has solo exhibited in Washington DC at COLLECTIVE an Art Space, Kalanidhi Dance, and in a loft space in the Flatiron District, New York City. Sarita has been featured in group shows at Chicago’s Fine Arts Building, New Gallery, Art City, SZNL Creative House, Oak Park Art League, and Woman Made Gallery in Chicago.
Statement
Though deeply personal, my art is representative of the communities I embody and move within. I use paint, stitching, screen printing, and soft sculpture to investigate what occurs emotionally in identity formation and its presentation, specifically how queer and immigrant identity co-create each other. I complicate perceptions of what “self” is and speak to how spaces of intersection – among identities, histories, and landscapes – contain both conflict and creative potential. Using a critical, artistic, auto-ethnography, I investigate how to care for myself and others.
In exploring watercolor properties of movement and unpredictability, I move intuitively and with tolerance for the unexpected. Within the blurred, liminal spaces, I find solace and skills of reimagining. My portraiture and its multiple reproductions in painting and tapestry make my experience undeniable, both to myself and the viewer. Today, my work has evolved to speak to elements of my ethnicity that are informed by witnessing and reflecting on colonial trauma. For my generation of artist/activists who are inheriting a dying planet and continue to experience exploitative systems of abuse and erasure, I offer my art in the hope that it can provide strength and inspiration for connection and action.