My work examines the overlooked history of Indian indentureship in the Caribbean through the lens of my own family story. As a descendant of indentured laborers, I draw from inherited memory, archival photographs, and material culture to explore how displacement, survival, and transformation shape identity across generations.
Working in mixed media—pigmented prints, fabric, paint, and found imagery—I reconstruct fragments of a history that was rarely documented with care. I am interested in the silences around indenture: the erased names, the disrupted lineages, and the resilience that persisted despite colonial systems. By layering textiles, gesture, and archival traces, I create visual spaces where these stories can be reimagined and reclaimed.
My practice is driven by the tension between rupture and continuity. Each piece serves as a bridge between past and present, inviting viewers to consider the emotional, cultural, and political legacies of indentureship. Through this work, I honor my grandparents’ journey while asserting the presence and agency of their descendants in contemporary visual culture.
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Renluka Maharaj was born in Trinidad and Tobago and works between Colorado, New York City, and Trinidad. She received her BFA from the University of Colorado Boulder and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Maharaj has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Martha Kate Thomas Fund, the Presidential Scholarship at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and the Barbara De Genevieve Scholarship.
Her work is held in institutional collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, the Flaten Museum, Bank of America, and Special Collections at the University of Colorado Boulder, as well as multiple private collections.
Maharaj has also been supported by fellowships and residencies including Project for Empty Space, Golden Arts Foundation, Fountainhead Residency, and the Vermont Studio Center, among others. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Elle India, Harper’s Bazaar India, New American Paintings, Coolitude Volume II (essay) Juxtapoz, and Hyperallergic, Coastal Relations Enacting Diaspora (essay), I Will Not Go, (cover), Karahee From The Cane Fields, (cover), Worldly Afterlives Tracing Family Trails Between India And Empire, (cover and essay) Nourish and Resist Food And Feminism in Contemporary Global Caribbean Art, (cover and essay)
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