Wanted Beautiful Home Loving Girl (2024) Cheryl Mukherji

Wanted Beautiful Home Loving Girl is an exploration of the histories, legacies, and conventions of matrimonial portrait photography in Indian arranged marriages. Inspired by matrimonial photographs of my grandmothers, aunts, and mother from family albums, I reimagine the tradition by staging portraits within my domestic space that evoke Indian photo studios. The traditional matrimonial photograph acts as a visual currency exchanged between families wherein the prospective bride is expected to perform her desirability, femininity, and domesticity for the male suitor through prescribed gestures and good looks, which comply with Eurocentric beauty standards. In the work, I explore these themes in the contemporary context, working through feminist photographs and ‘thirst traps’, alike. Using self-portraiture, I visualize my body in scenes that are complex, exaggerated, and mundane restagings of vernacular and familial matrimonial archives. Focussing on refusal and resistance, the work acts as a counter-archive and emphasises quotidian forms of feminine self-representation through humour, performance, and play.

About the Artist

Cheryl Mukherji (b. 1995) is an Indian visual artist and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. In her work, Cheryl explores the idea of origin and inheritance, which is embedded in the figure of her mother and her presence in the family album, using photography, text, video, printmaking, and installation.She is currently the 2024 Workspace Artist-in-Residence at Penumbra Foundation. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian, Brooklyn Museum, Minnesota Museum of American Art, International Center of Photography, The Print Center, Baxter St. at Camera Club of New York, among other venues. Cheryl’s works are included in collections at the Harvard Art Museums and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She holds an MFA from ICP-Bard College, New York.