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Like much of Chitra Ganesh’s work, her latest screenprint edition with Durham Press, titled Prophecy, tells a story that looks towards a better world. Ganesh challenges conventional narratives by placing female and queer protagonists at the forefront – in this reality, women rise from a temple as they weightlessly float to the sky. A better world is not just imagined, it emanates from a female figure as she imbues life into this vision.

Ganesh’s work synthesizes a wide range of influences, notably drawing from her Indian heritage. The graphic nature of vintage Indian comics Ganesh grew up with exist in a science fiction world, all intermingled in queer theory and mythology. Like a comic book, each image in Prophecy acts as an archetype to convey complex leitmotifs. On the left half of this imagined world Ganesh builds one of the stories captured in the print using three distinct elements: a hand seems to lift a woman into the air as she releases a bird-like figure from within. Though already suggestive, the imagery becomes increasingly rich with meaning as each symbol is broken apart – the woman rises from a hand with an eye in its palm recalling a Hamasa, a symbol of protection and strength; the winged creature released from the woman is connected by an umbilical cord shaped like an Unalome, a Buddhist symbol for the individual’s path to enlightenment. From these three static images, Ganesh captures an entire journey of empowerment. Her protagonists possess agency, powerfully breathing life into a new future.