The material elements in this collage by Suchitra Mattai include fabric taken from a scarf of her mothers; a page from a vintage, colonial design book; and a female figure clipped from a vintage Indian magazine ad. Sight lines emanating from the heroine’s eyes move outwards, suggesting they transcend the limitations of the picture, implying special vision—super heroine vision—that moves beyond the past into an imagined future. The sense of transformation is heightened by the duality of the two horses: one of which contains a historic, colonial print, and one of which is colorful and aglow. This piece belongs to a series Mattai debuted in 2023, memorializing super heroines as embodiments of feminine empowerment. A lot of these works celebrate the power of women, while simultaneously reimagining colonial narratives. “These elements are tied together, so I find it hard to extricate them,” says Mattai. “The wonder of art is that it doesn’t have to be one element. Stories are complex. I want to portray that in the works.”