Sheela Gowda Biography 
Sheela Gowda is an Indian artist from Bhadravati, Karnataka. She is best known for Painting, Sculpture and Installation works. She is a recipient of Rajyotsava Award in 2013, Sotheby's Prize for Contemporary Indian Art and G. S. Shenoy Award in 1998, Senior Fellowship, Government of India (1994-96), prestigious Karnataka Lalith Kala Academy Award in 1985 and many more honours. She was a Finalist for the 2014 Hugo Boss Prize and her name was shortlisted for Artes Mundi 5, Cardiff in 2012. Well-known artist K. G. Subramanyan is his mentor. She was initially trained as a painter and later she mastered sculpture and installation as well.
Sheela Gowda was born in 1957 in Bhadravati, Shivamogga District, Karnataka. Her ancestral home belongs to a rural village. But as her father worked in small towns, her younger days were spent in different towns. Her father worked in government sector. Her father was a writer and art collector. Sheela studied from Ken School of Art in Bangalore. Later she pursued a postgraduate diploma at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan in 1982 followed by MA in painting from the Royal College of Art in London in 1986.
She initially studied painting. But in the 1990s, Gowda moved into installation and sculpture and succeeded in this field. She held her first solo show at Iniva, London, entitled Therein and Besides in 2011. From there on, she has conducted over a dozen of solo shows in big cities in India and abroad. Many of her works portrays hardships of women in the society, mental barriers, work load and stress. She uses human hair, cow-dung, incense and vermilion as medium of her work, and is known for her process oriented work.
Published: January 28, 2019
Updated: January 28, 2019
