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Dhruvi Acharya
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Dhruvi Acharya, a native of Mumbai, began painting her memories of home soon after reaching the US in 1995. Dhruvi received her MFA in painting, with a scholarship, from the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, USA where she was coached by the illustrious painter Grace Hartigan. In India, she studied Applied Arts at Sophia Polytechnic College. At Sophia’s, she was the first fourth-year student to be awarded the Gold Medal, an honour...
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Dhruvi Acharya, a native of Mumbai, began painting her memories of home soon after reaching the US in 1995. Dhruvi received her MFA in painting, with a scholarship, from the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, USA where she was coached by the illustrious painter Grace Hartigan. In India, she studied Applied Arts at Sophia Polytechnic College. At Sophia’s, she was the first fourth-year student to be awarded the Gold Medal, an honour usually reserved for the final year students.
Dhruvi was featured on the cover of India Today in January 2005 as one of the 50 Indians under 35 years of age that are on the “fast track to success”. She has been written about in the New York Times, Art India magazine, The Times of India, Indian Express, Mid-Day, the Baltimore Sun, Elle, Verve, and L’Officiel among others. She was a nominee for the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, 2006. She was invited to give a talk at the prestigious National Centre of Performing Arts, Mumbai. This young painter has had solo shows in the US and in India, and has exhibited in juried shows with judging panelists from the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Hirshhorn (Smithsonian) Museum. She was a nominee for the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, 2006. Her works are held in private and public collections both in India and America. A mother of a three-year and a five-year old boy, she is quickly learning how to juggle, so that she can find a fine balance amongst her various roles.
"My work is an emotional diary, where I record my experiences and observations. The roles of being a woman and artist plus a mother and daughter, of living life as a couple with two boys, or life as a couple with two careers …these dualities find their way into my paintings, through allegories and metaphors, images and colours. On the two-dimensional surface of the canvas, I try to affix, in space and time, the moments that have been lived and the emotions that have been felt. While they may have passed, they also exist again, in my work.
Just like me, my work is not overtly or obviously political. But I feel very deeply about the issues facing us today, especially the issues faced by women – societal expectations, gender-motivated crimes, the emphasis on and evaluations based on physical appearances – and so these latent yet strong feelings layer on to the surfaces of my paintings. Instead of anger, I tend to utilize a subtle and wry humour, drawing viewers into a world where thoughts are as visible as “reality”. In some of my recent work, I try to recreate on canvas the magical, make-believe world that my boys often inhabit. As every parent knows, one of the greatest fears a parent lives with is the thought of harm befalling their children, at any time, and in various forms. These fears have begun to make their way into my work; my psychology turned physical.
The paintings are not autobiographical. They are based on my drawings. And my drawing books are like a daily journal, chronicling the changing landscapes of my emotions, and the various portraits of my experiences. These drawings are “stream of consciousness”, and inspire my paintings. I also much appreciate and am influenced by the fine details of Indian miniatures, the visual humour and graphics of comic books and the irreverent quality in the work of contemporary Californian and Japanese artists. I am interested in creating a balance by contrasting details and patterns with uniform color fields to create visually and psychologically layered paintings.
But at the end of the day, I wish for my paintings what I have wished from the first completed canvas –when they are viewed the specifics of the stories and the meaning of each image become unimportant, and all that is felt and remembered is the universality of the human experience."
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Born
1971
Mumbai
Education
1998 Master of Fine Arts, Hoffberger School of Painting, Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore
1996 Post Baccalaureate in Fine Arts, Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore
1993 Commercial Arts - Illustration Major, Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai
1988 Indian Certificate of Secondary Education, (Valedictorian) Walsingham House School, Mumbai
Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2010 'GASP', Kravets/Wehby Gallery,...
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2010 'GASP', Kravets/Wehby Gallery, New York
2008 'One Life On Earth', Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai
2006 ‘Two Plus Two Equals’, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
2004 ‘Figment’, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
2002 ‘Woman, Mother, Goddess’, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
2001 ‘Solo Show’, Gomez Gallery, Baltimore, USA
2001 ‘Three Contemporary Painters: Nilima Sheikh, Manisha Parekh, Dhruvi Acharya’, Bose Pacia, New York
2000 ‘Two Person Show’, Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery, Kent, USA
2000 Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery, Kent, Connecticut
1999 ‘East Meets West’, School 33, Baltimore, USA
1998 ‘Three Person Show’, Gomez Gallery, Baltimore
1998 ‘M.F.A Thesis Show’, MICA Gallery, Baltimore
1996 Colour, Culture and Consciousness, Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore
Selected Group Exhibitions
2011 'Of Humour, Wit & Satire', Gallery Threshold, New Delhi
2010 'Bring Me A Lion: An Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art', Hunt Gallery, Webster University, St. Louis, USA
2010 'Size Matters or Does it?', Latitude 28, New Delhi
2010 'Young Indian Artists', Ahuja Museum of Arts, Kolkota
2009 'Vicissitudes of the Constructed Image', Tangerine Art Space, Bangalore
2009 'Edible Woman', Kravets/Wehby Gallery, New York
2009 'Chrysalid', Amelia Johnson Contemporary, Hong Kong
2009 'Summer Show', Kravets/Wehby Gallery, New York
2009 'Pixel Power', The Loft, Mumbai
2009 'Intimate Lives', Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
2008 'Faces', Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
2008 'Shifting Terrains: Altered Realities', The Shrine Gallery, New Delhi
2005 'Fatal Love: South Asian Art Now', Queens Museum of Art, New York
2005 'In Short', Hacienda Art Gallery, Mumbai
2005 Gallery Collection, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
2005 'Divine Inspiration', Hacienda Art Gallery, Mumbai
2004 'Ideas & Images VI', National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai
2002 'Words and Images', National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai
2002 Selections from New American Paintings, Mid-Atlantic Artists, OSP Gallery, Boston, USA
2002 Juror: Susan Rosenberg, Assistant Curator- Modern & Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art Shakti, 50 Women Artists, Hacienda, Mumbai
2001 'Shaken and Stirred', juried show, BosePacia Modern, New York
2001 Sakhi Visual Arts exhibition, BosePacia Modern, New York
2001 Alienation, York Quay Gallery II, York Quay Centre, Harbourfront, Toronto, Canada
2001 'Excerpts from My Diary Pages', Fine Art Company, Mumbai
2001 Art Frenzy,12th Street Studios, Long Island, New York
2001 Indo – American Arts Council Auction, New York
2000 Art of Modern India, Bose Pacia Modern, New York
2001 'Nayika', Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
2001 'Small Works', 23rd annual juried show, 80 Washington Square East Galleries, New York
2001 'Diasporadics 2000', Riverside Church Theater, New York
2001 Print Exhibition, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York
2000 'Nayika', Contemporary Expressions by Prominent Indian Women Artists, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
2000 'Small Works', 23rd Annual Juried Show, 80 Washington Square East Galleries, New York
2000 Print Exhibition, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York
1998 Three Person Show, Gomez Gallery, Baltimore
1998 13 Artists, 2 Galleries, regional juried show
1998 Artscape Annual, National Juried Show, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore
1998 M.F.A. Thesis Show, MICA Thesis Gallery, Baltimore
1998 'The Divine Comedy: Images of Heaven, Hell and Limbo', Cade Fine Arts Centre Gallery, Arnold, Maryland
1997 Artscape Annual, Meyerhoff Gallery, Baltimore
1997 Selections from the MICA Graduate Studios, Meyerhoff Gallery, Baltimore
1997 The Hoffberger Show, MICA Thesis Gallery, Baltimore
1997 Augenmusik VI, Peabody Conservatory of Music, Baltimore
1996 The First Year M.F.A. Show, MICA Thesis Gallery, Baltimore
1996 Augenmusik V, Peabody Conservatory of Music, Baltimore
1996 The Post Baccalaureate Group show, MICA Fox Gallery, Baltimore
1990 Maharashtra State Juried show, Travelling Exhibition, India
Joint Exhibitions
1999 'East Meets West', with Bari Kumar at School 33, Baltimore
Participations
2012-13 'Re-picturing the Feminine: New and Hybrid Realities in the Artworld', Gallery OED, Kochi
2011 'Fabular Bodies: New Narratives in the Art of the Miniature',
presented by Harmony Art Foundation at Coomaraswamy Hall, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharah Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai
2011 'Roots in the Air, Branches Below: Modern & Contemporary Art from India', San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose
2010 'Evolve', 10th Anniversary Show, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
2009 'Lo Real Maravilloso: Marvelous Reality', 20 Years Celebration of Gallery Espace at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
2008 Dubai Art Fair, Abu Dhabi represented by Chemould Prescott, Mumbai
2008 The Harmony Show, Nehru Center Gallery, Mumbai
2008 Minature Format Show, SansTache, Mumbai
2007 'India Art Now', Spazio Oberdan, Milan
2007 Minature Format Show, SansTache, Mumbai
2007 Dubai Art Fair, Dubai represented by Chemould Gallery, Mumbai
2007 Aqua Art Fair, Bucheon Contemporary, Miami
2007 FIAC, Paris represented by Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai
2006 Bridge Art Fair, Bucheon Contemporary, Miami
2001 The Harmony Show, Nehru Center Gallery, Mumbai
2000 The Harmony Show, Nehru Center Gallery, Mumbai
Honours and Awards
2006 Awarded the Aditya Vikram Birla Kala Kiran Puraskar
2006...
2006 Awarded the Aditya Vikram Birla Kala Kiran Puraskar
2006 Nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, USA
2005 Included among '50 Leaders of their Generation', (cover page), India Today, January 31 issue
1997 International Student Scholarship, Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore
1993 Gold Medal for Best Advertising Campaign, Sophia College, Mumbai
1988,89,91 Student of the Year Award, Sophia Polytechnic., Mumbai
1998 Gold Medal, Walsingham House School, Mumbai
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