Artepedia: Sheela Gowda

Name: Sheela Gowda
Born: 1957, Bhadravati, Karnataka
Lives & Works: Bengaluru
Education: M.S. University, Baroda
Royal College of Art, London
Cite International des Arts, Paris
Awards: Finalist for Hugo Boss Prize 2014

Gender politics, myth, mysticism and the role of female subjectivity are some of Sheela Gowda's key concerns. Through her practice, she explores the complexities of life in the subcontinent, referencing the daily intimacies of life.

Her process based practice blurs the boundaries between fine art and traditional crafts and evokes new meanings through her use of everyday objects.

Trained as a painter in Baroda and then in London, the artist abandoned the practice in the early 90s, opting instead for materials with metaphorical potency. This shift is often attributed to the wide spread communal violence active in the country and particularly the Mumbai riots of 1992. Although Gowda attempts to destabilise concepts of reserved domesticity in a society increasingly subject to violence, she does not make overt political statements. Instead she uses forms and materials to subtly communicate her ideas.

The artist uses a diverse array of media including painting, drawing, sculpture and installation and employs a range of unusual materials. Her choice of materials is essential to her practice, she incorporates a combination of everyday materials as well as materials of ritual and religious significance. For instance she uses cow dung, a material prized in rural India as anything from fertilizer to medicine; kumkum (red turmeric), thread and incense, which are both connected with Hindu religious rituals). Her large-scale sculptures and installations incorporate commonplace manufactured materials, which include salvaged and recycled objects like lead plumbing pipes, asphalt, plastic sheeting and metal barrels. For example, Darkroom (2006) is built from tar drums that are stacked and flattened into sheets.

Some of Sheela Gowda's most important works include Private Gallery (1999-2000); two free standing panels create a corner, which is lined with pats of cow dung like one sees in rural homes. The artist then attaches watercolour paintings of Bengaluru to the installation, signalling the collision of rural and urban India.

Another important work is her 1999 piece And Tell Him My Pain. The work is created out of stands of rope that stretch over hundreds of metres, each stand is passed through and attached to a needle. Through the installation the artist attempts to blur the boundaries between the domestic and the political.

Sheela Gowda has had several solo and group exhibitions both in India and abroad, including the Venice Biennale and the Lyon Biennale. Her work is housed in several public and private institutions. The artist is represented by Gallery SKE in India.

Noise Life at Project 88
Project 88's industrial chic space will act as a temporary home to Desire Machine Collective's new body of work. The exhibition Noise Life, is the collective's first solo exhibition in India. Occupying both the gallery space in Colaba as well as the Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, the exhibition I divided into video and sound installations at Project88 and a series of photographic works at the Max Mueller Bhavan.

Desire Machine Collective's work is an intense audio visual experience that challenges it's audience. The artists privilege empirical sensation over meaning. The title of the exhibition Noise Life alludes to a tautology, life is noise.