b. (1980)
Sumakshi Singh is an artist, writer, and educator. She holds an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and a BFA from Maharaja Sayajiro University in Baroda, India. Throughout her career, she has taught and lectured at prestigious institutions such as The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Oxford University, and Columbia University. She has also mentored residencies for The Victoria and Albert Museum and curated for the Devi Art Foundation. Singh's artwork has been acquired by notable museums like the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Queensland Gallery in Australia.
Sumakshi designed the renowned windows for Hermès, India. She has mentored residencies for The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Why Not Place 2010 and 2011, and curated for the Devi Art Foundation. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Asia Arts Future Game Changer award by the Asia Society in 2022 ( to honor artists for their significant contributions to contemporary art), the YFLO award (from the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry) for achievement in the arts in 2019, a Zegna Grant in 2009, an Illinois Arts Council Award in 2007 (in recognition of outstanding work and commitment within the arts) and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award in 2005 (to support and encourage excellence, artistry, focus, direction, maturity, and originality in the visual arts). Singh's installations open up a rich, silent space, which lies just before the world solidified by our perceptions. Our everyday 'given' are often questioned as her work begins to dissolve familiar forms and intimate memories into insubstantial mirages.
In Singh’s Untitled, a thread drawing, the viewer is encouraged to explore an ethereal maze of transparent architectural facades from 33 Link Road, Singh's family home which was built in Delhi shortly after the partition when her grandparents migrated from Pakistan to India. Whilst she has lived in many states and countries, Singh’s sense of home was always tethered to this one address. It was a site of yearly gatherings, storytelling, embroidering and knitting in the sun, family weddings and sleepovers, a room in the back where her mother was born, and a room in the front where her grandfather died. This home, a container of memories, now stands uninhabited.