After thirty-five years in Southern India, transdisciplinary artist, Ashwini Bhat now lives and works in the foothills of Sonoma Mountain, California. Coming from a background in literature and classical Indian dance, Bhat works in sculpture, ceramics, installation, and video, developing a unique visual language exploring the intersections between body and nature, self and other. Her practice draws from her rural agrarian community upbringing. Her work is influenced by syncretic shrines, rituals, and non-Western metaphysical concepts of empathy for the non-human. Bhat’s work, in part, is an act of (re)mapping consciousness, contributing to a spiritual or psychological archive, with an emphasis on the transformative aspects of place. Bhat is a is a 2024 John S. Knudsen Prize winner and a 2023 United States Artists Fellow. In 2023, she became a certified Naturalist at the Fairfield Osborne Preserve, a research site for Sonoma State University’s Center for Environmental Inquiry. Bhat is represented by Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, USA, and Project 88, Mumbai, India.

 
 
 

“Bhat is no traditionalist – one look at her work tells you that she is actively in dialogue with the latest currents in contemporary art. But she has deep respect for her material. Clay does indeed come alive in her work, and it has much to show us – if we are ready to see it.”

– GLENN ADAMSON