Mequitta Ahuja

Mequitta Ahuja

New York City
Program Designer & Director
Resident Artist 2005 & 2007

Mequitta Ahuja is the founding Program Director of Blue Sky Project and singularly responsible for its philosophy, design and structure. In 2005 she was also one of our first four Resident Artists.

A Chicago-based painter, originally from Connecticut, Mequitta received her MFA from The University of Illinois at Chicago in 2003, mentored by artist, Kerry James Marshall. The central conceptual tension of Mequitta’s work is between contemporary representations of specific ethnicities and their histories and an idea that spans the history of image making from cave art to renaissance religious depiction to traditional sacred iconography to new-age aesthetics, the universal. Her artistic strategies include creating hybrid forms, stylization of the figure and foregrounding paint as well as image.

Her work has been exhibited in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. She was chosen for the November 2005 12×12: New Artists/New Works at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. A work from that show is in the collection of the Ulrich Museum in Wichita KS. In 2007, Mequitta will exhibit in the inaugural exhibit of the new Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City.

In the fall of 2006, Mequitta relocated to Houston after accepting a residency in the CORE Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She plans return in 2007 for her third summer as Blue Sky program director.

Mequitta’s work can be seen at: http://www.automythography.com/

Blue Sky Insight

“The truly unique and aspect of Blue Sky Project is the opportunity it gives not only to youth but also to the artists to develop their art. It was one of the most artistically rich experiences I’ve had. It completely shakes up the typical idea of “youth work” or being a “teaching artist.”

“With my project, I built on what I already knew and did, but then to have a group of people also committed to the same ideas and processes is challenging. I tested out new ideas and refined old ones. It was materially rich as well. When you have 9 people experimenting with a set of materials, you end up with a full spectrum of methods.”