CHRISTINE CHETTY-PAYET

Christine Chetty-Payet lives and works in Seychelles, which accommodates a wide diversity of influences and experiences. 

Through her work Chetty-Payet provokes dialogues and conversations relating to issues concerning the exploitation as well as the successes of women within a global, multicultural, social and political context. She is concerned with the perception and treatment of women and explores their emotional, spiritual and social conditions in order to make statements through art. However, she does not polarize or separate women’s issues from other global concerns e.g., climate change: ultimately, they are part and parcel of the aggregate human condition, they affect us all.
Like many women, from all walks of life and with differing cultural environments and ethnic traditions, she uses and produces art work using mainly fabrics to challenge the concept of making art from craft as the vehicle of expression. In much contemporary artwork, the self-referencing debate seems to be about content and ends instead of both techniques and means. The language Chetty-Payet uses attempts to go beyond the classical type of western art history-based education and is in some ways a reaction to it in that the western tradition seems to deny indigenous values and excludes the work of women.