Dhruvi Acharya

Dhruvi Acharya is an Indian artist, known for her psychologically complex and visually layered paintings, often accented with dark humour. Her work has been exhibited in international museums and galleries since 1998, when her MFA thesis exhibition was also her first gallery solo show. Acharya began painting her memories of home soon after arriving in the United States from Mumbai, India, in 1995. She spent a decade living in the US, along with her late husband, filmmaker Manish Acharya (1967-2010). Mother of two teenaged boys, Acharya currently lives and works in Mumbai.
In a piece about her October-November 2016 solo show "after the fall" at Chemould Prescott Road Gallery in Bombay, which reviewer Anindita Ghose viewed as marking "a powerful return" for the artist, Vogue India wrote that the "visual detailing in Acharya’s work lures viewers to pause and reflect on their own experiences. This is not just her struggle. It forces you to confront your own." Reviewing the same show for India's most respected broadsheet, The Hindu, Phalguni Desai wrote that "After the Fall is exquisite, personal and unabashed in its grief and in its strength."
In Acharya's lusciously painted world, human forms morph to match their mental state, comic book-inspired empty thought and speech bubbles convey ineffable emotions, and memory drawings fade in and out of layers of paint: merging the past, the present and imagined futures. Employing subtle, dark and wry humour, Acharya's work magnifies the psychological and emotional aspects of an urban woman’s life in a world teeming with discord, violence and pollution. Although the genesis of the work is often personal, Acharya's finished paintings reflect on the universality of the human emotions and experiences.

Dhruvi Acharya received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Degree from the Hoffberger School of Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, USA in 1998. She completed her Post Baccalaureate in 1996 from the same college, having earlier completed her undergraduate studies in Applied Arts from the Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai. While at Sophia, she was awarded the Gold Medal after her fourth year, despite this normally being an honour reserved for fifth-year students.

Acharya was recipient of the FICCI Young Woman Achievers award in 2013, the Aditya Birla Kala Kiran Puruskar in 2008, and in 2005 was featured on the cover of India Today as part of "The 50 (under 35) on the Fast Track." She was nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award in 2006.

SOLO SHOWS

• 2016 after the fall, Gallery Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai
• 2010 gasp!, Kravets/Wehby, New York
• 2008 One life on Earth, Nature Morte, New Delhi & Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai*
• 2006 Two Plus Two Equals, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai *
• 2004 Figment, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai *
• 2002 Woman, Mother, Goddess, solo show, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
• 2001 Gomez Gallery, Baltimore
• 1998 M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition, MICA Gallery, Baltimore
• 1996 Color, Culture & Consciousness, Meyerhoff Gallery, Baltimore

SOLO SHOW CATALOGS *

• One Life on Earth, 2008, essay by Girish Shahane
• Two Plus Two Equals, 2006, essay by Nancy Adajania
• Figment, 2004, essay by Jitish Kallat

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• 2013 Mythopoetic, QCA Gallery & GUAG, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
• 2013 New and Hybrid Realities in the Artworld, Gallery OED, Kochi
• 2013 Cardology, Samsara Art Gallery, Mumbai
• 2013 Equilibrium, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
• 2012 Fragile, 1x1 & Paradox Gallery, Singapore
• 2012 India Art Fair, New Delhi, Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai
• 2012 Taj Lands End, Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai
• 2012 Small is Beautiful, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
• 2011 Roots in the Air, Branches Below: Modern and Contemporary Art from India, San Jose Museum of Art, USA
• 2011 FIAC, Chemold Prescott Road, Paris
• 2011 Laugh Lines, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi *
• 2011 Fabular Bodies, Chatrapati Shivaji Museum, Mumbai *
• 2010 Bring me a Lion: An Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art, Hunt Gallery, Webster University, St. Louis, USA*
• 2010 Young Indian Artists, Ahuja Museum of Arts, Kolkota, India*
• 2010 Evolve - 10th Anniversary Show, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai *
• 2009 Edible Woman, Kravets / Wehby, New York
• 2009 Chrysalid, Amelia Johnson Contemporary, Hong Kong
• 2009 Marvelous Reality, Gallery Espace, New Delhi *
• 2009 The Miniature Format Show, SansTache Art Gallery, Mumbai *
• 2009 Vicissitudes of the Constructed Image, Tangerine Art Space, Bangalore
• 2009 Intimate Lives, The Loft & Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
• 2009 Power of Pixels, The Loft, Mumbai
• 2009 Summer Show, Kravets / Wehby, New York
• 2009 Mumbai International Airport Art Project, Mumbai
• 2009 1x1 India on Canvas, The Loft, Mumbai *
• 2009 Picture Postcard Project, Hacienda Art Gallery, Mumbai
• 2009 Group Show, Nature Morte Annex Shivalik, New Delhi

catalogs available*