Saumitra chandratreya

Bio

Saumitra Chandratreya is a Fiber-Installation artist who lives in St. Petersburg, FL and Chicago, IL. He holds a Master of Design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). He has a BFA in Textile Design from the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Bengaluru, India.

Chandratreya is a recipient of the Trailblazer Award from Studio@620, A Queer Icon award from the Queer Asian Museum in 2026, he was awarded one of the Individual Artist Grants from St. Petersburg Arts Alliance in 2020, Emerging Artist Grants from Creative Pinellas in 2018 and he was an emerging artist at the 2019 Gasparilla Festival of Arts in Tampa, FL. He was a finalist who exhibited at the Union League Club of Chicago for Luminarts Cultural Foundation Fellowship. Chandratreya was awarded the Shapiro Graduate research fellowship at SAIC and was nominated for the James Nelson Raymond Fellowship while studying at SAIC. His works have been collected nationally and internationally in private and public collections. Chandratreya has shown in group and solo shows in Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, and United states. Chandratreya is an active member of 24-Hands Printmaking collective and Collate Printmaking Collective. He is a Full Time Visiting Artist at SAIC for 2025-2026 school year. 

Artist Statement

I make installations, cyanotypes, textiles and risograph prints that are informed by documenting, collecting, and daily practice. I track my routines and use the images created during these routines to inform my visual language. Objects that I collect often carry prior lives and cultural meaning through their utilitarian uses and symbolism. Through repetition and layering, I combine printmaking mediums with other textile based techniques to create emphasis. My work is an archive of care, time, and presence.

My practice is rooted in queer and immigrant experiences. I am interested in how identity is constructed through memory, labor, and the negotiation of belonging, within families, institutions, and public life. Acts of care, both visible and invisible become the central framework and inform visual narratives. Practices that are overlooked or discarded are made the foreground. 

By combining everyday objects into installations, I consider how personal archives intersect with collective narratives. Cyanotype and Risograph processes allow for variation, reproduction, and the imprint of time, while the installations and textiles invite attention through their scale. Across various forms, my work points to political participation. The daily actions, act of preservation, and attention to what remains are gestures of resistance, remembrance, and continuity.