| Ashwini Bhat | |
| Birth Place: | Puttur, India |
| Awards: | United States Artists Fellowship and The Howard Foundation Fellowship for Sculpture |
Ashwini Bhat is an artist, based in California. Bhat uses sculptures, installations, video, and text, to develop a unique visual language exploring the intersections between body and nature, self and other.[1] Her work draws inspiration from her home in the foothills of Sonoma Mountains, California as well as her rural agrarian community upbringing in Southern India.[2] Her work focuses on California’s ecology in this time of climate change and shifting habitats.[3]
Born in Puttur, Karnataka, India Ashwini Bhat has a master's degree in literature from Bangalore University. She studied classical dance (Bharatanatyam) for seventeen years and traveled internationally as a professional dancer in the Padmini Chettur Dance Company before beginning a career as a visual artist. Coming from dance to sculpture, Bhat sees a close relationship between her own body and the sculptural body she creates.[4]
Since 2015, she has lived in the USA.[5] Bhat lives in a small unincorporated town in Northern California with poet, writer Forrest Gander.[6]
In 2023, Bhat became a certified Naturalist at the Fairfield Osborn Preserve, a research site for Sonoma State University’s Center for Environmental Inquiry. She is represented by Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, USA, and Project 88, Mumbai, India.