Mequitta Ahuja
Off the Edge

Off the Edge

© Mequitta Ahuja

Off the Edge
Off the Edge
ArtistAmerican, born 1976
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Off the Edge
Date2008
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions96 × 76 in. (243.8 × 193 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the African American Art Advisory Association
Object number2008.388
Not on view

Explore Further

Object Type
Description

Reworking the genre of self-portraiture, Mequitta Ahuja probes the construction of both image and identity. To create her paintings, the artist weaves undersized brushstrokes into larger, textured surfaces. This weaving of paint underscores the structure of the images and, in her words, “the deliberate and highly constructed presentation of the subject’s identity.”


Off the Edge shows Ahuja confidently stepping across the field, her hand clasping a remote shutter control. Borrowing from Dutch portraiture conventions, Ahuja’s pose is magisterial and her setting is indeterminate (an ambiguous mix of landscape, hair, and galactic imagery). Off the Edge asserts identity as a form of performance. Ahuja underscores this process by borrowing a pose from the history of art and also by referencing her use of photography. Notable within the composition is the hand-held remote shutter control—Ahuja begins a work by taking studio photos of herself with such an apparatus. Although you may not realize at first that Off the Edge is a self-portrait, the corded shutter control brings you back to the reality of the painting’s construction.


 


ProvenanceThe artist; purchased by MFAH, 2008.
Exhibition HistoryExhibited: "Learning by Doing: 25 Years of the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Part II)," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Millennium Gallery, November 15, 2008 - January 11, 2009.

"Statements: African American Art from the Museum's Collection," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Millennium Gallery, January 24–September 25, 2016.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Signed in ink verso canvas lower right: "Mequitta Ahuja / 2008"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

A World on Edge
Billy Hassell
1990
Oil on canvas
2003.77
Edge of the Sea
Paul Manes
1987
Oil and collage on canvas
87.285
lick your teeth, they so clutch
Rachel Jones
2021
Oil pastel and oil stick on canvas
2021.433
Circostanza eroica (Heroic Situation)
Enzo Cucchi
1981
Oil on zinc, oil on canvas
2018.286.A,.B
Untitled
Paul Mogensen
1966–1978
Oil and stand oil on canvas
78.230
Playing Shepherd
c. 1970
Oil and sand on canvas
71.64
Untitled (Night Sky No. 2)
Philip Smith
2022
Oil pastel, colored pencil, and gesso on canvas
2022.128
Good Morning
Khalif Tahir Thompson
2022
Oil on canvas, handmade paper, papyrus, velvet, raw silk fabric, newsprint, acrylic, leather mixed media
2023.228
Unfolding, Venice
Judit Reigl
1975
Acrylic and oil on canvas
2023.158
Provided
Vicky Colombet
2006
Pigment, oil, alkyd, and wax on canvas
2021.576
7-3-65
Pierre Soulages
1965
Oil on canvas
66.11
Canticle
Barnaby Fitzgerald
1989
Oil on canvas
2003.73