The Elmhurst Art Museum is proud to present the first major museum exhibition of celebrated artist Pooja Pittie this winter. Titled Undercurrent and curated by Allison Peters Quinn, Executive Director and Chief Curator, the exhibition highlights a decade of the Mumbai-born, Chicago-based artist’s practice. Featuring over 40 paintings, drawings, and fiber works, the survey explores Pittie’s creative evolution and determination to articulate the body-mind experience through material experimentation, searching for balance while living with a progressive muscular disability. Praised for her large-scale, seductive abstract paintings since 2015, Pittie has had to shift her mark-making gestures in recent years to accommodate her body’s altered state. The result is a masterful exploration of hand-crocheted objects informed by painting, inviting visitors to enter a tactile, meditative space to reflect on the relationship between the body and its material surroundings.

Pooja Pittie is a visual artist based in Chicago, whose work explores the complex interplay between body and mind, movement and stillness. Raised in Mumbai, India, Pittie trained as an accountant and earned an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago before transitioning to a full-time art practice in 2016. Living with a progressive form of muscular dystrophy, Pittie’s work draws on the dynamics between a slowing body and an active, curious mind. Through painting and fiber art, she weaves together personal memories, cultural heritage, motherhood, and her experiences of disability, creating intricate compositions that speak to resilience and identity. Pittie has completed the Center Program at Hyde Park Art Center, the HATCH residency at Chicago Artists' Coalition, and the 3Arts Bodies of Work Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was the recipient of the 2022 3Arts Next Level/Spare Room Award. Her work is part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; University of Chicago; University of Illinois at Chicago; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (Delhi, India). She is represented by McCormick Gallery in Chicago.