Truganina artist Mita Chowdhury says that she enjoys everything about being a painter, from the creative process to showing people her work.
Chowdhury said she has been creating art since she was a child growing up in Bangladesh, before studying at art school.
She moved to Australia in 2007 and commenced a bachelor of fine arts at RMIT University in 2018, which she will complete this year.
Chowdhury said that balancing her roles as a wife, mother and student has been “a hell of a journey”.
“But I loved every minute of it,” she said.
Her art explores the social responsibility of being a mother and woman across multiple cultures, including the challenges she has faced “as a woman of colour living in diaspora”.
Chowdhury said she aimed to bring together both the eastern and western cultures she has an insight into and create a common dialogue between them.
Chowdhury said that she does not consider herself a feminist but that her art could be “very feminist”.
“Art is like my voice, it is what I want to speak about,” she said.
“I can express myself through art.”
Chowdhury’s first solo exhibition in Australia was held in Melbourne in April and May.
Her second solo exhibition will be at the Incinerator Gallery, in Moonee Valley, in 2022.
Along with her love of art, Chowdhury said she was passionate about helping the community.
In the school holidays, she runs free workshops for children about how to turn leftover household items into art.
She also runs an awareness program for mental health wellbeing among women.
Chowdhury has received a grant from Wyndham council to run a socially-engaged art project, which has been cancelled twice due to COVID.
Chowdhury said she hopes to hold the event later this year.
Details: www.facebook.com/mita.au.art/
Alesha Capone
