Sheela Gowda (born 1957 in Bhadravati, India[1]) is a contemporary artist living and working in Bangalore.
Trained as a painter Gowda expanded her practice into sculpture and installation employing a diversity of material like human hair, cow-dung, incense and kumkuma powder (a natural pigment most often available in brilliant red).
[citation needed] Her early oils with pensive girls in nature were influenced by her mentor K. G. Subramanyan, and later ones by Nalini Malani towards a somewhat expressionistic direction depicting a middle class chaos and tensions underplayed by coarse eroticism.
Gowda's art schooling began at Ken in Bangalore, a small college established by R. M. Hadapad.
[5] Gowda moved into installation and sculpture in the 1990s in response to the changing political landscape in India.