Sheela Gowda


Sheela Gowda is a contemporary artist living and working in Bangalore. Gowda studied painting at Ken School of Art, Bangalore, India pursued a postgraduate diploma at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India, and a MA in painting from the Royal College of Art 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. 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 drawing from ritualistic associations. Her early oils with pensive girls in nature were influenced by her mentor K. G. Subramanyan, and later ones by Nalini Malani 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 Prize.

Early life

Due to her father, she lived in both rural and urban areas. Her father documented folk music and collected folk objects. Gowda's art schooling began at Ken in Bangalore, a small college established by R. M. Hadapad. Later, she went to Baroda to study under Professor K. G. Subramanyan.

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:
Notable group exhibitions include: