Biography
Initially trained as a painter, since the 1990s Sheela Gowda has been making sculpture and installations from the materials of everyday life. Cow dung, human hair, ash and tar are among the materials she has employed in work that is meticulously produced by the artist herself. For Gowda the physical process of making the work is tied to a concern with issues of manual labour in the context of the rapid social and economic changes in India today.
For the 9th Sharjah Biennial Gowda presented two installation works. Drip Field (2009) was a major installation in the public space between the two wings of the Sharjah Art Museum. Also on view was Someplace (2005), a sound piece where visitors could listen to a recording through a grid of interconnected metal pipes.
Gowda has exhibited extensively throughout her career including solo exhibitions at the Office for Contemporary Art, Oslo (2010), GallerySKE, Bangalore (2008) and at Bose Pacia Gallery, New York (2006). Her work has been shown in the Venice Biennale (2009), the Serpentine Gallery, London (2009), the Sharjah Biennial (2009), MuHKA, Antwerp, Belgium (2008), Documenta, Kassel, Germany (2007) and the Lyon Biennale, France (2007).
Gowda studied at the Ken School of Art, Bangalore (1979), Vishwa Bharati, Shanti Niketan, Visva Bharati University, West Bengal (1980-82) and on an Inlaks scholarship she studied at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris and graduated with an MA in painting from Royal College of Art, London (1984-86).
Born in Bhadravati, Karnataka, India in 1957, she currently lives and works between Switzerland and Bangalore.
October 2010
This person was part of Sharjah Biennial 9
