Sutapa Biswas

Sutapa Biswas (b.1962, Shantiniketan, India) is a conceptual artist based in London, UK working with a range of mediums, including painting, installation, drawing, film and time- based media. Biswas studied at the University of Leeds from 1981-85, at the Slade School of Art from 1988-1990, and at the Royal College of Art between 1996-1998. Since the mid 1990s Biswas has been interested in exploring themes of time, gender, identity and desire in relationship to space or systems of knowledge and power in her art. Biswas often draws from myths and iconography from ancient Hindu mythologies, speaking of the symbolism she says, “I want people to research into my culture, as I've been doing into European and Western culture”. Through her art, Biswas’ intention of creating is to present works to which the viewer responds on a visceral level; a context within which they are transported to a place somewhere within their own past, and which visually and poetically unsettles perceptions of time and place.
 
Solo exhibitions include (Upcoming) Bristol Museums, Bristol, UK (2025); Niru Ratnam, London, UK (2024); Sutapa Biswas: Lumen, Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange, Cornwall, UK (2022-2023); Lumen, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK; Arnolfini, Bristol; New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall; Autograph, London, UK; Kettles Yard, Cambridge, UK; Prince Charles Cinema, London, UK;  (2021-2023); Arnolfini at 60: Sutapa Biswas, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2021); Next Art Tainan, 182 Gallery, Tainan, Taiwan (2019); In Perpetuity, Hospital Rooms, London, UK (2018); PORe, a hundred songs for Kneeze and Vijay, Rochdale Interchange, Lancashire, UK (2017-2018); Kashima Artist in ResidenceSUTAPA BISWAS, Recent Works by Sutapa Biswas, the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, Oregon, USA (2006); SUTAPA BISWAS, Recent works by Sutapa Biswas, and drawings by Joseph Turner and Edward Lear, Harewood House, Yorkshire, UK (2004);  SUTAPA BISWAS, Recent Works by Sutapa Biswas, Café Gallery Projects, London, UK (2004);  Sutapa Biswas, Untitled (woman in blue, weeping), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada Video installation (2000); Plug In Gallery, Winnipeg, Canada (1994); Synapse, Gallerie OBORO, Montreal, Canada (2004); Synapse, The Photographer’s Gallery, London, and City Art Gallery, Leeds and Or Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (1992).
 
Group exhibitions include All About Eve, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2025); The 80s: Photographing Britain, Tate Britain, London, UK (2024); Outside the Circle: Sit-In #4, Cooper Art Gallery, University of Dundee, Scotland (2024); Ecospheres, Joburg Contemporary Art Foudnation, Johannesburg, South Africa (2024); The Time of Our Lives, Drawing Room, London, UK (2024); Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970 to 1990, Tate Britain, London, UK (2023-2024); Medium & Memory, curated by Griselda Pollock, Hackelbury Fine Art, London, UK (2023); Holding Space, Hospital Rooms, in collaboration with Hauser & Wirth, London, UK (2023); Contested Bodies, Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK (2023); TantraL From Enlightenment to Revolution, The British Museum, London, UK (2020-2021); Midnight's Children: 70 Years of Indian Artists in Britain, Ben Uri Gallery, London, UK (2020); Speech Acts, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (2018-2019); A Feminist Space in Leeds, University of Leeds Project, Leeds, UK (2017); Liberties, an exhibition of contemporary art reflecting on 40 years since the Sex Discrimination Act (1975), Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange, Cornwall, UK; Collyer Bristow Gallery, London, UK (2015-2016); Tate Liverpool: Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980's Britain, Iniva, London, UK (2014); Thin Black Line(s), Tate Britain, London, UK; British Subjects: Identity and Self-fashioning 1967-2009, Neuberger Museum, New York, USA (2010); 3rd Clerkenwell Film and Video Festival, London, Hayward Gallery, London (2005); From Tarzan to Rambo, Tate Modern, London, UK (2002-03);  Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway (2001);  Crown Jewels, Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany (1999), among more.
  
Highlights & Collections

Sutapa Biswas has received numerous prestigious awards and fellowships, including the 2020 Art Fund Award (UK), the 2019–20 Yale Center for British Art Visiting Scholars Award, and the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at Yale (2009). Other notable honors include the LAFVA Award (2008), the National Endowment for the Arts Award (1994), and a nomination for the Deutsche Bank European Photography Award (1992). Her distinguished residencies include RadioCity 2014/15 at Tate Britain, Next Art Tainan (Taiwan, 2019), the Beppu Triennial (Japan, 2015), and the Art Gallery of Ontario (2000). Earlier residencies include Whitechapel Art Gallery (1988) and the Thapong International Workshop (Botswana, 1995). Biswas’ works have been widely reviewed and are held in numerous collections including: TATE Collections, Arts Council England, Sheffield Museums and Art Galleries, APT New York, Reed College (USA).