"Annu Palakunnathu Matthew: Bollywood Satirized"
2001-06-07 until 2001-09-03
Philadelphia Art Alliance
, , USA United States of America

Annu Palakunnathu Matthew focuses on how commercial films in her homeland of India reflect and reinforce stereotyped gender roles in Indian culture. Bollywood refers to the name given to the largest film industry in the world, concentrated in Bombay. Images from real cinema posters are combined and altered to create works that, in the artist's words, explore issues such as the position of women in Indian society, the dowry system, arranged marriages, discrimination based on skin color, the stigma of pre-marital relationships and inter-racial relationships. Matthew uses a software program that allows her to create unusually large images that mimic the size of movie posters.

Matthew received her MFA in photography from the University of Delaware in 1997 and is currently assistant professor of art at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI. Her most recent solo exhibitions include: DRIK Gallery, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX; Gallery 1101, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL; SoHo Photo Gallery, New York, NY; and the Fleisher Challenge Artist series 1998-99 at the Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA. She has been awarded residencies, grants, and fellowships, including: New Media Resident, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY (2000); Residency-Photography, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT (2000); Artist-in-Residence, Light Work, Syracuse, New York (1999); Aaron Siskind Fellowship in Photography, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (2001); New Media Residency Grant, Visual Studies Workshop and New York State Council for the Arts New Technology Grant (2000); and University of Rhode Island Foundation Grant (1999). Matthew's work has been published in Exposure, LensWork, Nueva Luz, Photographers International, Photo Metro and The Photo Review.

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