Anoushka Mirchandani

UTA Artist Space presents I Resemble Everyone but Myself, the first solo presentation in Los Angeles by the India-born, San Francisco-based artist Anoushka Mirchandani. The exhibition showcases twelve new figurative and abstract paintings by Mirchandani, examining her experience as an Indian, Immigrant, Other, Woman. The title of the exhibition, an excerpt from late Indian poet AK Ramanujan, deeply resonates with Mirchandani’s work that probes ancestry, personal history, cultural and sociopolitical environments through a diasporic lens, exploring the micro-tensions and identity transformations that are part and parcel of code-switching and assimilation in a foreign land.

For Mirchandani, there is a certain violence in the unwavering celebration of immigrant assimilation that often undermines one’s identity, and comes at intimate personal and cultural costs. Simultaneously, there is self-learning, growth and discovery of agency deeply intertwined with the effort of integration into a new environment. In this body of work, Mirchandani examines the nuances of cultural assimilation; the incessant concealing and revealing of cultural markers and re-building of home through the lens of her own immigrant journey, while also reaching back to the women of her ancestry.

I Resemble Everyone but Myself specifically highlights Mirchandani’s grandmothers, both of whom fled what became Pakistan during the 1947 Partition of India under British rule. There is a recurring theme of generational displacement in Mirchandani’s matrilineage, either by force or choice, whereby identity and sense of place is reconfigured and born anew. Identity and home thus reveal themselves as fluid sites of memory, a gathering of sensations, stories, objects, people as opposed to a fixed destination.

Mirchandani’s Nani (maternal grandmother) and Dadi (paternal grandmother) served as inspiration for the exhibition. Through archival photographs, in-depth interviews, and places of familial and emotional significance, Mirchandani unravels–and reassembles–her grandmothers’ attempts to navigate life as refugees in a new country. Muted palettes of earthy reds, indigo blues and mango yellows across figurative and abstract works come through in opaque shapes and soft layered washes that allude to the inherent contradictory nature of being an immigrant; simultaneously visible and invisible. Much of the exhibition’s narrative resonates with Mirchandani’s own immigration journey. When visiting India, Mirchandani often finds solace in her family's anecdotes, exploring locations and investigating objects and stories that are imbued with nostalgia and personal history. Through the themes of warmth, resilience and memory, Mirchandani connects stories that are hers and theirs to the greater canon of human experience.

UTA Artist Space Director Zuzanna Ciolek states, “We’re thrilled to open Anoushka’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles and introduce audiences to her work, which bridges family, connection, and generational storytelling in a beautiful and compelling format. The exceptional paintings draw you in to Anoushka’s world, and make you want to learn more.”

Born in Pune, India, Anoushka Mirchandani (b. 1988) is a female artist living and working in San Francisco. Her works are informed by her cultural upbringing in India and her personal discoveries and growth in the United States. Working across multiple media, Anoushka creates figurative and abstract artworks that embody the emotions of what it feels like to be a woman in society today. Following acclaimed presentations at Marianne Boesky Gallery and The Armory Show, her debut exhibition with UTA Artist Space presents a new body of work that examines cultural assimilation through the perspective of her own immigrant journey.