Ashwini Bhat

Ashwini Bhat is an artist, based in California. Bhat uses sculptures, installations, video, and text, to develop a unique visual language exploring the intersections between body and nature, self and other.^[1] Her work draws inspiration from her home in the foothills of Sonoma Mountains, California as well as her rural agrarian community upbringing in Southern India.^[2] Her work focuses on California’s ecology in this time of climate change and shifting habitats.^[3]

Ashwini Bhat
Born	Puttur, India
Awards	United States Artists Fellowship and The Howard Foundation Fellowship for Sculpture
Website	ashwinibhat.com

Biography

Born in Puttur, Karnataka, India Ashwini Bhat has a master's degree in literature from Bangalore University. She studied classical dance (Bharatanatyam) for seventeen years and traveled internationally as a professional dancer in the Padmini Chettur Dance Company before beginning a career as a visual artist. Coming from dance to sculpture, Bhat sees a close relationship between her own body and the sculptural body she creates.^[4]

Since 2015, she has lived in the USA.^[5] Bhat lives in a small unincorporated town in Northern California with poet, writer Forrest Gander.^[6]

In 2023, Bhat became a certified Naturalist at the Fairfield Osborn Preserve, a research site for Sonoma State University’s Center for Environmental Inquiry. She is represented by Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, USA, and Project 88, Mumbai, India.

Awards

• USA Fellowship^[7]
• The Howard Foundation Fellowship for Sculpture (2013–14)^[8]
• McKnight Artist Residency Fellowship^[9]

Selected Exhibitions

• “Her Nature,” Project 88, Mumbai, India^[10]
• “Bay Area Now 9,” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, USA^[11]
• “In Your Arms I’m Radiant,” Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA^[12]
• “Imprinted,” American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA, USA^[13]
• “Ritual Encounters,” a collaborative installation, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts UC Davis, CA, USA^[14]
• “Earth Took of Earth,” Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI, USA^[15]