Artist Biography
Shambhavi (b. 1966, Patna, India, based in New Delhi, India) works across painting, printmaking, sculpture and new media to examine the relationship between nature and humankind. A key concern in her practice is the agricultural worker—regarded by the artist as the cornerstone of Indian identity—whose way of life is increasingly threatened by urbanisation and climate change.
Having spent much of her childhood along the Ganges riverbanks in the village of Bihar, Shambhavi has long perceived the earth to be the root of life. This cosmic reverence is observed in Ghatak (2008), a large-scale nine-panelled painting that combines nebulous skies with circular outlines referencing the mouth of a clay pot. In works like Reaper’s Melody (2018) and Duwar (2019), iron sickles—an agrarian symbol—are arranged across a space to take on a sculptural presence. The warmth of their orange rust and their stacked arrangement allude to the collective resilience of India’s rural farmers.
Shambhavi obtained her BFA from the College of Fine Arts and Crafts, Patna in 1986 and her MFA from the College of Arts, New Delhi in 1992. Her work is held in leading collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi.
Notable exhibitions include Unstable Ground (2023), Museum of Modern Art, New York; Mythopoetic (2015), the Queensland University, Brisbane; Amrita Sher-Gil Revisited (2004), Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi; New perceptions, Image, Media (1998), Centre for Art & Literature, New Delhi; Chandigarh (1993), Kunsthal, Rotterdam; and Nine Contemporary Indian Artists (1991), Gementeemuseum Arnheim. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including the Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life (2018), 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi.
Shambhavi had her residency at the STPI Workshop in 2010, resulting in the exhibition Lonely Furrow (2011).