dhruvi acharya

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 worked closely with the illustrious American Abstract Expressionist painter Grace Hartigan. In India, she studied Applied Arts at Sophia Polytechnic College during which time she won a Gold Medal for academic excellence.

Dhruvi's current body of work comprises richly patterned, mixed media paintings that are layered with graphic style, narrative imagery in which she explores the complexities of motherhood, cross cultural communication, and the ambivalence in shifting locations. She paints, through allegory, on the poetic moments in one's emotional and intellectual quarrel with oneself exploring the concepts of speech and communication, solitude and loneliness, and their effects on one's psyche. They are based on her drawings in her sketchbook, which she treats 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," says the artist.

Her process involves applying layer upon layer of opaque and translucent paint, matt and gloss medium to create a uniform surface where the images and patterns visually recede to various levels. Applying personal, ancient and pop-culture symbols and metaphors, Dhruvi creates narratives that draw the viewer into a world where thoughts are as visible as the "reality" that they inhabit. Dhruvi has been drawing influences from Indian miniature painting, the visual humour and graphics of comic books and the irreverent quality found in the work of contemporary Californian and Japanese artists. She is interested in creating balance by contrasting details and patterns with uniform color fields to create visually and psychologically layered paintings.

Dhruvi's work 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. This young painter has had solo exhibitions in galleries 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.

Website: www.dhruvi.com