After thirty-five years in Southern India, Ashwini Bhat now lives and works in the foothills of Sonoma Mountain, California. Coming from a background in literature and classical dance, Bhat uses ceramic sculptures, installations, video, and text, to develop a unique visual language exploring the intersections between body and nature, self and other. In her practice, she draws from her upbringing in a rural agrarian community. Her work shows the influence of syncretic shrines and rituals and non-logocentric and non-Western metaphysical concepts of empathy for the non-human. Bhat sees her work, in part, as an act of (re)mapping consciousness, contributing to a spiritual or psychological archive, with an emphasis on the transformative aspects of place.
Bhat is a 2023 United States Artists fellow. She has also received the Howard Foundation Award for Sculpture, the McKnight Foundation Residency Fellowship, and the Julia Terr Fellowship. She has exhibited nationally & internationally and is seen in collections at the University of Michign Museum of Art, Newport Art Museum, Brown University’s Watson Institute, New Bedford Historical Society (USA); Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park (Japan); FuLe International Ceramic Art Museum (China); Daugavpils Mark Rothko Centre (Latvia); and in many private collections. Her work has been widely reviewed and featured in BOMB magazine, Art and Cake LA, Dovetail Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Bay Nature, PinUp Magazine, New City Mag, Brooklyn Rail, Art India Magazine, Lana Turner: a Journal of Poetry and Opinion, Riot Material, American Craft Council, Alta Journal, Ceramic Art and Perception, Ceramics Ireland, New Ceramics, Caliban, Crafts Arts International, The Studio Potter, Logbook, and Ceramics Monthly.