Mithu Sen

In her visceral sculptures, installations, videos, and works on paper, Mithu Sen combines eroticism, grotesquerie, and exquisite beauty to both send up and upend, with an elegant, sardonic wit, modes of self-representation, gender stereotypes, and personal, social, and artistic decorum. Images of the body—genitalia, intestines, blood-filled veins, bones, limbs, and hair—recur throughout her work, mixed with a host of motifs drawn from Indian and global popular culture, such as tigers and Japanese anime characters. Sen often begins with photographs of herself, manipulating her image with a playful gusto, drawing a mustache on her upper lip or showing small phalluses pointed towards her, poised for penetration. Through these manipulations, she demands control over the way she is seen and represented, pre-empting stereotypes through exaggerated representation.