Avantika Bawa

  1. Professor of Art
Email Addressa.bawa@wsu.edu
Location102G

Biography

Visit my personal website (*See disclaimer)

Education

  • 1996-98 Masters of Fine Art (Concentration in painting, drawing and film)
    School of the Art Institute of Chicago
  • 1991–95 Bachelor of Fine Art (Concentration in painting, drawing and printmaking)
    Maharja Sayajirao of Baroda, India

Avantika Bawa is an artist and educator based in Portland, OR, and her hometown, New Delhi, India. She has an MFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA in the same from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India.

Her drawings and site- specific installations emphasizes the intersections between, stasis and motion, the functional and the non-functional, sharing a common language with minimalist traditions, accentuating reductive form, modularity, geometry, and difference in scale.

Bawa has participated in the Ucross, Skowhegan, MacDowell, Kochi Biennial Foundation, and Djerassi residencies among others. Noteworthy solo exhibits include shows at: The Portland Art Museum, Schneider Museum, Ashland, OR: Suyama Space, Seattle, WA, The Columbus Museum, GA, Saltworks Gallery, and the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta, GA: Nature Morte, and Gallery Maskara, India: Lazy Eye, Yucca Valley, CA; and Disjecta, Portland, OR. Large scale installations include, iterations of The Scaffold Series at Rann, Kutch, India (2019-20), Art Beyond, Ashland OR (2021) and The Sculpture Park, Jaipur, India (2024).

In April 2004 she was part of a team that launched Drain – Journal for Contemporary Art and Culture. In 2014 Avantika was appointed to the board of the Oregon Arts Commission. She is currently Professor of Art at Washington State University, Vancouver, WA.

Pink City installation in Jaipur.

List of Works

(curated, invitational or juried)

Selected Solo Exhibitions (Curated  or Invited)

2025
  • Everything, Everywhere, Now: The Built Present – Weedman Design Partners, Portland, OR
  • Modular Waltz –  Gallery Blueprint12, New Delhi, India
2024
  • A Brutal Affair –  511 Gallery of the Center for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR
2023
  • simplenothingsimplesomething – University Galleries of Illinois State University, Normal, IL
2022
  • Charged Voids – Portland Community College, Portland, OR
  • 3/2 – Lazy Eye Gallery, Yucca Valley, CA
2021
  • Constructing Darkness – Agenda, Portland, OR
2020
  • ICE. ICE – THE END project space, Atlanta, GA
  • #FFFFFF  – Ditch Projects, Springfield, OR
2018
  • APEX (COLISEUM) – Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR (catalog)
  • Coliseum – Ampersand Gallery and Fine Books, OR (artist book)
2017
  • Parallel Faults – Los Angeles Valley College, Los Angeles, CA
  • Beyond the Wall – Bush Barn Art Center, Salem, OR
2015
  • Aqua Mapping – White Box of the University of Oregon, Portland Campus, Portland, OR
  • Measuring Blue – Pacific Sky Exhibitions, Eugene, OR
2014
  • Flood. Control – Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR (catalog)
  • Aqua Mapping – SALTWORKS Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2012
  • At Owners Risk – Suyama Space, Seattle, WA (catalog)
  • Another Documentation – Gallery Maskara, Mumbai, India  (catalog)
  • About Framing – Half Dozen Gallery, Portland, OR  (catalog)
2011
  • Score. – Disjecta, Portland, OR (catalog)
2010
  • Re: Re: Re – Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA (catalog)
  • Yesterday. yellow – Mile Post 5, Portland, OR
  • HAlf – Doppler Gallery, Portland, OR
2009
  • Mathesis: dub,dub,dub – Gallery Maskara, Mumbai, India (catalog)
  • Aspartame – Carlos Gallery, University of the South, Sewanee, TN
2008
  • Perfect Distortions – SALTWORKS Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2007
  • Denied Readymades (spaces, gaps and stacks) – Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, India
  • Sit, Stack – Autzen Gallery, Portland State University, Portland, OR
  • Straight Curves – The Fine and Performing Art Center, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC
2006
  • (Raw) Space – The Philip M. Meyers, Jr. Memorial Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
  • Summer Solos – Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA
  • Cut Corners – Tilt Gallery and Project space, Portland, OR
2005
  • Tilt – Saltworks Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2004
  • Navigating Space/s – Gallery Nature Morte, New Delhi, India
  • Untitled Corners – SALTWORKS Gallery, Atlanta, GA
1999
  • Another Installation – ARC Raw Space, Chicago, IL
1996
  • The City and Popular Culture – India International Center, New Delhi, India

Selected Solo Installations (Curated or Invited)

2026
  • Scaffolds in the Valley – 3rd edition of sā Biennial 2026, Ladhak, India. Curator Vishal Dhar (forthcoming)
2024
  • Scaffolds by the Sea – Sculpture by the Sea, 2024 Edition, Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia
  • Pink Scaffolds in the Pink City – The Sculpture Park Biennial, Jaipur, Rajasthan. Curator Peter Nagy
2021
  • A Yellow Scaffold on the Ranch – Site-specific installation for Art Beyond, organized by the Schneider Museum, Ashland, OR
2020
  • The Collapse – Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India
    In collaboration with Agrocel Industries Private Limited, Kutch, India
2019
  • A Pink Scaffold in the Rann – Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India
    In collaboration with the Living and Learning Design Center Museum, Bhuj, India
2016
  • Mineral Spirits – Site-specific installation for Portland2016, A Biennial of Contemporary Art
    Presented by Disjecta. Astor Hotel, Astoria, OR. Curator Michelle Grabner (catalog)
2015
  • Aqua Mapping – Outdoor screening, Prabhat. Curated by Gallery Maskara, Mumbai, India
  • Neon Laundry – Site-specific installation as part of ALL RISE, City of Seattle, WA
2012
  • Preternatural – St Brigid’s Centre for the Arts, Ottawa, Canada. Curator Celina Jeffery (catalog)
  • Cocktail #ff0080 – Installation for Art in Rural Storefronts Project, Philomath, OR (Juried)
2008
  • A (new) Genre Landscape – A City of Atlanta Project, Atlanta, GA. Curator Stuart Keeler (catalog)
2007
  • Big Stories, Little India – South Asian Visual Arts Collective (SAVAC) and [murmur], Toronto, Canada

Group Exhibitions

2026
  • An Abstract Turn: Baroda from the 50’s to now – Ark Foundation, Baroda, India
2025
  • To Gather Your Leaving – Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
2024
  • Wall Flowers – Greene House Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, Curator, Craig Drennen
2023
  • Pattern, the Grid, and Other Systems– Art & Design Gallery, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY
  • SITE Seeing – Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, MO
  • Mycelial Legacies – Organized by Anant Gallery at Bikaner House, New Delhi, India. Curator Deeksha Nath
2022
  • E/Merge – National Indo American Museum of Art, Lombard, IL. Curator Shaurya Kumar (catalog) 2021
  • Template Days – University of Kentucky Museum, KY (two-person show). Curator Stuart Horodoner
  • Architecture and Urban Design – BAM Biennial, Bellevue Arts Museum, WA (Juried)
  • Show Windows – Le Mill, Mumbai. Curated by SqW:Lab and Tarq, Mumbai, India, and Coventry Trust, UK
2020
  • Hallie Ford Fellows – Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene, OR
  • Endless State – Skowhegan Office, New York, NY. Curated by the Skowhegan Alliance
  • On Big Drawing – A+D Leviton Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago, IL. Curator Friedhard Kiekeben.
  • The End is Near – Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta, GA. Curator Craig Drennen.
2018
  • 10 Years of Nes – Skagaströnd and Akureyri, Iceland (Invited)
2017
  • Dislocation – PDX Contemporary Art, Portland, OR (Invited)
  • Costumes, Reverence and Forms – Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA and Center for Contemporary Art & Culture at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR (Invited) (catalog)
2016
  • Portland2016 – A Biennial of Contemporary Art, across Oregon, presented by Disjecta.
  • Arts East, La Grande and Disjecta, Portland, OR. Curator Michelle Grabner (catalog)
2015
  • Whorled Explorations, Kochi Biennial – Collateral event,Pepper House Residency, Kochi, India (Invited) 2014
  • Ruptures in Arrival: Art in the Wake of the Komagata Maru – Surrey Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, Canada. Curator Jordan Storm (catalog)
2013
  • Diver–Cities – Latitude 28, New Delhi, India. Curator Bhavna Kakar.
  • 011+91/ 011+92 – Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, Canada. Curator S.Keeler (catalog)
  • Making A Mark: Drawing in Oregon – Arts Center of Corvallis, Corvallis, OR (Invited) Drawers Drawing – Julius Caesar and Peregrine Program, Curators Eric Lebobsky and Carrie Gundesdorf, Chicago, IL
2011
  • Art Pods – Space 4Art, Solo Installation (In conjunction with San Diego Art Fair), San Diego, CA (Juried)
  • Pulp – Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR. Curator Jodie Cavalier
2010
  • Vantage – Archer Gallery, Clark College,Vancouver, WA. Curator Blake Shell
  • Place – Pioneer Place Mall, Portland, OR. Curators Gabe Flores and Garry Wiseman
  • From, Johnson – Northern, Olympia, WA. Curator Judith Bauman
2009
  • Movers and Shakers – Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, GA (Invited)
  • Play – Spruill Center, Dunwoody, GA. Curator Hope Cohn
2008
  • Adventure in Mysticisms – Athens Institute of Contemporary Art, Athens, GA. Curator, Mike C Fagen
  • SouthxEast Biennial – Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL. Curator Rod Fauds (catalog)
  • Reorder – Marietta College Gallery, Marietta, OH. Curator Fred Jesser
  • Comfort/Burn – Artspace & Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, NY. Curator Alex Young
2007
  • Blank – Exploring Nothing – Tilt Gallery and Project Space, Portland, OR (Artist/curator)
  • The Velocity of Gesture, or How to Build an Empire – Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA (Invited)
  • “protectingflatsurfacesfrom” – Gallery 1600, Atlanta, GA. Curator Craig Drennen 2006 I Can’t Quite Place It – Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY. Curator Elizabeth Grady
2005
  • Wall to Wall – The Drawing Center, NY, NY. Curator Luis Camnitzer (catalog)
  • Semiconductors – Pharmaka Gallery, Los Angels, CA. Curator Craig Drennen
  • Reorder – The Savannah Gallery, Atlanta, GA and Gallery Red, Savannah, GA. Curator Sarah Walko
2004
  • Singular Identities – Habitat Center, New Delhi, India. Curator Dr. Alka Pande
  • Dis_solve – aquaspace, Savannah, GA (Artist/curator)
  • Motion Stills – Gallery Red, Savannah, GA Curator Matthew Mascotte
  • Erasing Borders – The Gallery, NY, NY Curators Sundaram Tagore and Aaron Shivdasani
  • Quiet – aquaspace, Savannah, GA (Artist/curator)
2003
  • Momenta Arts – Group show at White Columns and Momenta Arts, Brooklyn, NY (Invited) 2002
  • Current Circuits – Espace Lhomond, Paris, France (Invited)
  • Borderless Terrain – The Habitat Center, New Deli, India. Curator Dr. Alka Pande (catalog)
  • Vapour – aquaspace, Savannah, GA (Artist/curator)
  • Rebirth of Space – 64 Steps Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada. Curator Rashmi Varma (catalog)
2001
  • Draw’l Bridge – aquaspace, Savannah, GA (Artist/curator) Faculty Show – Hamilton Hall, Savannah, GA (Invited)
2000
  • Liberal Propaganda – Starland Galleries, Savannah, GA. Curator, Marcus Kenney.
  • Aqua 2000’ – aquaspace, Savannah, GA (Artist/curator)
  • Flower – 121 Jones, Savannah, GA Curator, Craig Drennen
1999
  • This is Only a Test – Broughton Street Storefront, Savannah, GA (Curated)
  • Room Service, Inn of Chicago – A Hotel Room group show, Chicago, IL (Artist/curator)
  • “Du jour” – The Butcher Shop, Chicago, IL (Invited)
  • Abstract Schematic – Nature Morte, New Delhi, India. Curator Peter Nagy
1998
  • New Artists in Chicago – Terra Museum of American Art, Juried Group show, Chicago, IL (Juried)
  • MFA Thesis Show – Gallery 2, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (Juried) 1996
  • Nippon Steel USA – Juried Exhibition, Chicago, IL (Juried)
1995
  • BFA Exhibition – Fine Arts Gallery, Baroda, India (Juried)
1994
  • Three – Shrishti Art Gallery, Baroda, India (Invited)
  • Artist Critic Nexus – Fine Arts Gallery, Baroda, India. Curator Chaitanya Sambrani.

Residencies (*includes public artist talks)

2023
  • Watershed Center for Fine Art Publishing and Research – Portland, OR
2022
  • Sitka Center for Art and Ecology – Otis, OR *
2021
  • Yucca Valley Material Lab – Yucca Valley, CA
  • Iris Project Residency – Los Angeles, CA *
2020
  • Centrum Artist Residency – Port Townsend, WA
2019
  • Rann of Kutch Residency – Kutch, India
2018
  • Nes Artist Residency – Skagaströnd, Iceland *
  • Crow’s Shadow – Golden Spot Residency, Pendelton, OR *
2017
  • Signal Fire – Portland, OR based with residency in El Paso, TX
  • U Cross Foundation – Clearmount, WY *
2014
  • Djerassi Resident Artist Program – Woodside, CA
2013
  • Kochi-Muziris Biennal Foundation and Pepper House Residency – Kochi, India
  • Coast Time – Lincoln City, OR
2012
  • MacDowell – Peterborough, NH
  • The Suyama Space Residency – Seattle, WA *
2010
  • Jentel Artist Residency – Banner, WY *
  • Mile Post 5 – Portland, OR
2009
  • Vermont Studio Center – Johnson, VT *
2008
  • Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture – Skowhegan, ME

Publications

  • Lead (or co) editor for the the issues on Play, 2006, Cold, 2009 (co–edited with Stuart Keeler),
  • Power, 2011 (co–edited with Owen Mundy) and Black, 2013 (co–edited with Greg Minissale), Athleticism, 2015 and Dirt, 2016 (co–edited with Greg Minissale) and (un)built (2022, co-edited with Karl Burkheimer).

 

Collections

  • Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
  • Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Special Collections, Yale University, CT Portland Trail Blazers Sales Office, Portland, OR
  • City of Portland Archives, Portland, OR
  • City of Seattle, Public Art Project commissioned by the Percent For The Arts program Flaxman Library, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
  • University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Seattle, WA The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA
  • Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum of Vadodra, Baroda, India Nature Morte, New Delhi, India
  • World Wildlife Fund, New Delhi, India
  • Flaxman Library – School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Seattle, WA The Columbus Museum – Columbus, GA
  • Maharaja Fatehsingh Museum of Vadodra – Baroda, India White Columns – Curated Slide Registry, New York, NY Nature Morte – New Delhi, India
  • World Wildlife Fund – New Delhi, India

*Disclaimer: This link leads to an external website that is not hosted by the university. The views and content expressed are those of the faculty member and do not represent the official positions of the university.