Sheela Gowda
Indian artist (born 1957)
Sheela Gowda (born 1957 in Bhadravati, India) is a contemporary artist living and working in Bangalore. She is known for her 'process-oriented' work, often inspired by the everyday labor experiences of marginalized people in India.
Early life
Due to her father, she lived in both rural and urban areas. Her father documented folk music and collected folk objects. Gowda's art schooling began at Ken School of Art in Bangalore, a small college established by R. M. Hadapad. Later, she went to Baroda to study under Professor K. G. Subramanyan.
Gowda studied painting at Ken School of Art, Bangalore, India (1979), pursued a postgraduate diploma at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India (1982), and an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art in London in 1986.
Work
Her work is associated with postminimalism drawing from ritualistic associations. Her early oils with pensive girls in nature were influenced by her mentor K. G. Subramanyan, and later ones by Nalini Malani towards a somewhat expressionistic direction depicting a middle class chaos and tensions underplayed by coarse eroticism. She is the recipient of the 2019 Maria Lassnig Prize.
The public source identifies “Sheela Gowda” as indian artist (born 1957). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sheela, Gowda and Indian.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1649249. VIAF identifies the subject as 50387658. The Library of Congress control number is n2001010719. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1979, 1982 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sheela Gowda” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.