Divya Mehra


Divya Mehra is a Canadian artist from Winnipeg, Canada. Mehra has been known for her style of using sardonic humor to address topics of colonization, institutional racism, displacement, and stereotypes in her work.

Biography

Divya Mehra was born in 1981 in Winnipeg, Canada, the second youngest of four children.
Divya Mehra received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University School of the Arts in New York and her BFA in Visual Arts from the University of Manitoba School of Art in Winnipeg.

Work

Mehra works with ideas of otherness, the construction of race and diversity, and marginalization. With a multimedia practice that encompasses installation, photography, video, sculpture, text, and "infus a biting wit," Mehra references East/West, high and low culture, and the personal and political to call attention to issues surrounding gender, race, and identity. She often uses comedy as an entry point to her work, explaining, "Humour everyone can understand... creates space because it's really the most accessible thing and so that becomes the pathway into my work." About her work, Mehra says, "How can I have a conversation about something as complex as race and representation? If you...joke about it, I think it creates a space for a lot of people to enter and then think about what they're laughing at."
In her 2012/2017 exhibition You have to tell Them, I’m not a Racist, Mehra installed over 25 text-based works that addressed issues of race and representation. The text works appeared in English, Hindi, and French. Her white-on-white wall text work "resists easy consumption by straining the eye, forcing the viewer to experience a prolonged, conscious discomfort."
Mehra was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award in 2017. Four of her works were shown as part of the 2017 Sobey Art Award Short List Artist exhibition, and two of her works were also featured in the Spring 2018 Canadian Art Magazine . That issue's cover image features Mehra in a recreation of the set of the popular Canadian sketch comedy show, You Can't Do That On Television.

Exhibitions

Mehra’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including with Creative Time, MoMA PS1, The Queens Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, Banff Centre, Art Gallery of Ontario, , Artspeak, Georgia Scherman Projects, , The Images Festival, The Beijing 798 Biennale, and Latitude 28.

Awards