Sheela Gowda (born 1957 in Bhadravati, India) is a contemporary artist living and working in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

. Gowda studied painting at Ken School of Art,

, India (1979) pursued a postgraduate diploma at

Visva-Bharati University Visva-Bharati () is a public central university and an Institution of National Importance located in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it ''Visva-Bharati'', which means the communion of the ...

Santiniketan Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by hi ...

, India (1982), and a MA in painting from the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It ...

in London in 1986. Trained as a painter Gowda expanded her practice into sculpture and installation employing a diversity of material like human hair, cow-dung, incense and kumkuma powder (a natural pigment most often available in brilliant red). She is known for her 'process-orientated' work, often inspired by the everyday labor experiences of marginalized people in India. Her work is associated with

postminimalism Postminimalism is an art term coined (as post-minimalism) by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. ...

drawing from ritualistic associations. Her early oils with pensive girls in nature were influenced by her mentor

K. G. Subramanyan Kalpathi Ganpathi "K.G." Subramanyan (1924 29 June 2016) was an Indian artist. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2012. Life Subramanyan was born in Tamil Brahmin family on 1924 in Kuthuparamba in Kerala, India, and initially studied econ ...

, and later ones by

Nalini Malani Nalini Malani (born 19 February 1946) is a contemporary Indian artist widely acknowledged to be among the country's first generation of video artists. She works with several mediums which include theater, videos, installations along with mixed ...

towards a somewhat expressionistic direction depicting a middle class chaos and tensions underplayed by coarse eroticism. She is the recipient of the 2019

Maria Lassnig Maria Lassnig (8 September 1919 – 6 May 2014) was an Austrian artist known for her painted self-portraits and her theory of "body awareness".Attias, Lauri''Maria Lassnig'', ''Frieze'', May 1996. She was the first female artist to win the Gran ...

Prize.

Early life

Due to her father, she lived in both rural and urban areas. Her father documented

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

and collected folk objects. Gowda's art schooling began at Ken in

, a small college established by R. M. Hadapad. Later, she went to

Baroda Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district and is situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River, from the state capital ...

to study under Professor

Work

Gowda moved into installation and sculpture in the 1990s in response to the changing political landscape in India. She had her first solo show at Iniva, London, entitled ''Therein and Besides'' in 2011. She was a finalist for the Hugo Boss Award in 2014. She creates apocalyptic landscapes using materials such as incense and kumkuma drawing a direct relationship between the labor practices of the incense industry and its treatment of women. Her works portrayed the condition of the women which is often defined by the load of their work, mental barriers and sexual violation.

Notable exhibitions

Gowda's work has been exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions and festivals: * Gallery 7, Mumbai (1989); * Gallery Chemould, Mumbai (1993); * GALLERYSKE, Bangalore (2004, 2008, 2011 and 2015); * Bose Pacia Gallery, New York (2006); * Museum Gouda, Netherlands (2008); * Office for Contemporary Art, Oslo (2010); * Iniva, London (2011); * Open Eye Policy, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (2013); * Centre International D'Art and Du Paysage (2014); * Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2014); * Documenta 12 (2007); * Venice Biennale (2009); * Provisions, Sharjah Biennial (2009); * Garden of Learning, Busan Biennial (2012); * IKON, Birmingham United Kingdom (2017); * "Remains" Pirelli HangarBiococca, Milan Italy (2019) * "Remains" BombasGens Centre D'Art, Valencia Spain (2019) * ''Sheela Gowda. It.. Matters'', Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich (2020) Notable group exhibitions include: * How Latitudes Become Form, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2003); * Indian Highway, Serpentine Gallery, London (2008); * Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi (2009); * Paris-Delhi-Bombay, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011); * MAXXI - National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome (2011); * Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2012); * Arken Museum, Copenhagen (2012); *

Kiran Nadar Museum of Art The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) is a private modern and contemporary art museum with locations in New Delhi and Noida. Established in 2010, it is India's first private museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art. The core collection of ...

, New Delhi (2013); * Museum Abteiberg, Monchengladbach (2014); * Para Site, Hong Kong (2015).

Major collections

* Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, USA * Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, USA

Sources

*Vedrenne, Elisabet
Sheela Gowda en révolte. Rebellious Sheila Gowda.
Connaissance Des Arts, (724), 34. 6 March 2014 * * * * * * * * * *

References

Grove Art ''Grove Art Online'' is the online edition of ''The Dictionary of Art'', often referred to as the ''Grove Dictionary of Art'', and part of Oxford Art Online, an internet gateway to online art reference publications of Oxford University Press, ...

Sheela Gowda

Frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...