....Dhruvi Acharya, known for the barbed humour with which she casts a wry glance at urban society, is an artist whose work must be interpreted within this most pertinent context of black humour. Playing on the comic value inherent in juxtaposing narratives of reality and fantasy alongside a dark vision of contemporary urban life enables her to impose the serious with the humorous in the same wasy as defined by Andre breton.
While probing anxieties about the world she lives in Dhruvi offeres macabre tales, often extrapol;ated from incidents in ther personal life. Tactile, make-believe scenarios allow for authenticallyy assumed comic experiences for us.....
2008
Indian Express, 22 July, 2008
Mint, 2 Aug, 2008
HT Cafe, 5 Aug, 2008
The Age Mumbai, Asian Age, 6 Aug, 2008
Bombay Times, Times of India, 7 Aug, 2008
DNA After Hrs, 13 Aug, 2008
Mans World,
Aug, 2008
L'Officielle
Time Out, Aug 2008
2007
Vogue India
2007 "Comic Trippings", Rituparna Som, October Volume I Issue I October
Artist Dhruvi Acharya battles with supervillains to make the world a better place.
A large woman on a couch munching WOW chips. Her cothes are neatly patterned in circles with sketches from the Indian comic book series Amar Chitra katha. The series narrates stories from Indian mythology of nubile damsels in distress, macho Gods coming to their rescue and family fueds solved by patriachal heads. One of the circles contains a woman frowning prettily, contemplating an arranged marriage: one has a bed of nails, another make-up. Its a painting - a highly detailed one by artist Dhruvi Acharya. With a few brsh strokes, Acharya makes a teling statement on the expectations heaped on a woman by society......
read entire article
2005
India Today
2005 50 on the Fast Track, January 31
They
are the leaders of a generation marked by drive and dynamism.
Their influence is undeniable today and it is everywhere - in
politics, business, the arts, science and sport. indentifying
the best and the brightest who represent the changing face of
India.
Dhruvi
Acharya, 33, Painter
Sphere of Influence: Rising prices, a waiting list for her work,
her art shows across continents. The prestigious Bose Pacia
Gallery in New York and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai have featured
her quirky portrayal of women.....
Breakthrough: Making art-watchers sit up due to sheer technique.....
2006
Art
India, the art news magazine of India
2006 “Dhruvi’s multi-layered Images”, Zehra Jumabhoy, vol. XI, issue IV
Time Out Mumbai
2006 “Two Plus Two Equals”, Deepanjana Pal, Sep
The Hindu
2006 “Psychological Portraiture”, Nancy Adajania, Nov 12
Mid Day
2006
“Life Under Layers”, Tinaz Nooshian, Sep 21
Hindustan Times
2006 “The Cartoons are on Canvas”, Rukmini Punoose, Sep 17
Hindustan Times
2006 "Attack of the Thought bubbles, Giatanjali Dang, Sep 15
Mumbai Mirror
2006
“A different kind of math”, Sep 13
Daily News & Analysis
2006 “Eclectic collection of Influences”, Amrita Gupta-Singh, Sep 9
Indian Express
2006
Mumbai Newsline, Georgina Maddox, July 21
Saatchi Gallery online,
2006 Critics Choice by Katarina Horrox
Art
India, the art news magazine of India
2005
"Living with one's thoughts", volume x, issue i, quarter
i"
Karin
Miller-Lewis looks at how Dhruvi Acharya depicts pensive women
and explores their besieged mindscapes
...Combining
deadpan caricature and sensous ornamentation (inspired by Indian
classical painting traditions), Acharya makes that address her
fears and frustrations.
Burgeoning ideas are portrayed as delicate buds in Seeds, which
depicts a state of meditative solitude. Elsewhere, however she
gets into as internal dialog with herself, the artist feels
besieged: in Voices, Yap-Yap and Connect, chattering jaws are
seen assaulting an isolated female figure. Choices presents
a pair of thought-bubbles hovering competitively above a two-headed
woman: the divided self, acharya seems to imply, is as vulnerable
to intimidation from within as without.
Creating art is no less anxious a contest. In Paint, an artist
confronts a blank canvas. She wears a stoic expression as blue
and grey colour-cells rampage overhead....
Most fundamentally, her works intertwine the urge for the soothing
beauty of ornamentation with the sharp disabusing wit of popular
graphic arts. The odd, lively harmonies that result, provide
more than a wry grousing about intransgient emotions. Whatever
her self doubts, Achary's pictures affirm her conviction that
art remains a fine way to come to terms with the limit of one's
obsessive desires.
Mid
Day
2005
“Shakti, pity, fortitude, tyaag”, Tinaz Nooshian,
September 9
Nirvana
2005
Asian Artists to watch : Living and breathing Art, Marcia Parker, July
L'Officiel
2005
October
Mid Day
2005
"What
makes me super successful", Your Life team. July 27
Bombay
Times ,The Times of India
2004 "Figment of Imagination", November 27.
Dhruvi
Achary's paintings are packed with stories but the core of her
work deals with the psychology of women.
She chooses to describe herself as a visual storyteller.....
Mumbai Newsline, The Indian Express
2004 "Inside Out with Dhruvi ACharya", November 10.
(show: Woman, Mother, Goddess)
A
year after her last solo show,
this artist turns more contemplative.
How come her busy canvases have given way to solitary women?
"My earliest paintings were quite crowded......
The
Asian Age
2004 The Dark Horse on their canvas, December 12.
Three
gallery owners in Mumbai tell us which artists have made it
big, or are sure to in the future.
Shireen
gandhy of Chemould on Artist Dhruvi Acharya
Erstwhile New York based artist Dhruvi Acharya has blown over
most of the buyers at Chemould Art Gallery. Her recent exhibition
called "Figment" was sold out within two days. Her
paintings ooze such tactile vision that the buyers want to touch
them. In fact, I had to issue a formal notice requesting patrons
not to touch the delicate surface of the canvas. there is a
huge amount of detailing in her work. Her paintings....
Bombay
Times ,The Times of India
2004 "All about Eve", November 10. (show: ideas &
Images at the NGMA, Mumbai)
Mumbai's
women artists get together for a unique art project to reflect
the feminine voice of the city.
Elle
Extraordinary
2004 November
Dhruvi
Acharya, artist
Dream job: "I think of myself as a visual storyteller.
And I tell my stories with paint".....
Mid
- Day, Mumbai
2002 "Bubbles of Talent", Jasmine Shah Varma, March
23. (show: Woman, Mother, Goddess)
Dhruvi
Acharya is a new face on the Indian art scene. And it is not
one you can afford to miss.
... an exceptional collection of her paintings and some hand
painted prints titles Woman, Mother, Goddess will be unveiled
at the Jehangir Art Gallery.
...In
her paintings, which balance wit and sensitivity, We see a sea
of motifs in her painstakingly detailed works. For instance,
there are thought bubbles, flowers, arrows, imaginary birds
and endless numbers of winding circles conveying a variety of
meanings…
… Dhruvi’s inspiration comes form life. She says,
“My content will be where my life takes me.” …She
says she maintains a diary in which she regularly draws…
Autobiographical and yet not totally, Dhruvi’s works are
instantly likeable, just like her. Though Dhruvi is an unknown
entity in the local (Mumbai) art scene, today, the time is not
far away when she will be in the thought bubbles of most art
patrons.
Mumbai
Newsline - Indian Express
2002 "Dhruvi Acharya's work unveils a world of femininity",
Georgina Maddox, March 13. (show: Woman, Mother, Goddess)
Although
I am visually inspired by Indian miniatures, I take several
elements from contemporary life and pop culture. Women, especially,
role-play in this contant duality. They may perform a Puja in
the morning and go to clubbing at night” she explains.
Addressing these parallel worlds, Dhruvi’s women –
who often take on vegetal, boneless shapes – float in a
timeless narrative, that moves back and forth. …
…I don’t think gender defines my work. I never start
out with the conscious decision to make a “statement”
about gender politics.
Bombay
Times, Times of India
2002 "A fabled World",
Hetal Shah, March 23. (show: Woman, Mother, Goddess)
Despite
their woes, Dhruvi Acharya's women are optimistic of a better
future.
New york based Dhruvi Acharya’s paintings… create
a unique world on canvas. A world populated with women –
in the throes of life – and wingless birds that symbolize
an illusion of freedom. She defines her work emphatically with
just one word: life. …
Her paintings seem like a maze of patterns which merge effortlessly
to tell a narrative. …
Afternoon
2002 "Brushing it up", March 26. (show: Woman, Mother,
Goddess)
US
- based artist Dhruvi Achary's latest collection of works is
currently on display at the Jehangir and the response has been
tremendous.
The
Asian Age
2002
"Diary in pictures", Shweta Shiware, March 20. (show:
Woman, Mother, Goddess)
…
Her present body of work also deals with her encounter with
motherhood and marvlesbat the female body – the spiritual,
mental and physical strength of women. …What catches your
eye first is the use of ancient metaphors and pop culture which
completes the narrative picture.
Times
of India - Downtown Plus
2002 "The many faces of a woman at Jehangir", Sudeshna
Chatterjee, March 30. (show: Woman, Mother, Goddess)
...her
works are influenced by memories and expreiences of a life divided
between New York and Mumbai.
Elan
2002 "A natural fusion", Saroj Iyer, February - March.
(show: Woman, Mother, Goddess)
...
She applies personal, ancient and pop-culture metaphors and
symbolism ... offer broader commentary on how Indian traditions
are mixing with western influences, paralleling her own life.
New
Woman
2002 "Painting Women", March. (show: Woman, Mother,
Goddess)
Dhruvi
Acharya's work will take center stage...In the current body
of work, she deals with the new experiences of motherhood and
reflects on the marvel of the female body, the emotional,mental
and physical strength of women.
Inside
Outside- The Indian Design Magazin
2002 "Woman, Mother, Goddess ", March. (show: Woman,
Mother, Goddess)
...Dhruvi's
work reflects an amalgam of western influences and cultural
traditions....
Mumbai
Newsline - Indian Express
2002 "Strength of a Woman", Georgina Maddox,March.
(show: Shakti)
Dhruvi
Acharya: Shakti is an energy within, that shows itself when
most needed. It appeared when I gave birth to my child. But
it is not just a feminine force, it is a human energy.
New
York Times
2001 "Asian Art takes Over", Holland Cottor, March
23. (Show:
Three Contemporary Painters: Nilima Sheik, Manisha parekh, Dhruvi
Acharya)
For
several years, Bose Pacia has shown artists old and young, known
and unknown, and its current three-person exhibition is characteristic
of its stimulating mix.
Dhruvi Acharya, 30, born in Mumbai and living in New York, paints
symbolic tableaus of women dream-traveling through various lives…
Baltimore
Sun
2001
"Artist documents her dual identity", Glenn McNatt,
January 18.
Exhibit:
Dhruvi Acharya's paintings capture her life in both India and
the United States.
In the luminous paintings of 29-year-old Indian artist Dhruvi
Acharya, cartoon-like thought bubbles rise from the heads of
people and streams of arrows issue from their mouths. These
graphic references to the processes of speech and communication,
which in Acharya's art are a source of mystery as well as of
clarity in human interaction, seem as much the subject of the
artist's paintings as the enchantingly drawn figures and objects
they contain. …..
The result is an art composed of equal parts myth and pop culture,
sacred and secular icons through which all the contradictions
that being an Indian-American implies are given lyrical, symbolic
expression through line, color and pattern on the painted surface.
Art India
2000 "Outside In: The paintings of Dhruvi
ACharya", Karin Miller Lewis, VOl. 5, Issue 4
...Watching
(1999), one of Ms. Acharya's best paintings, blends the quotidian
and supernatural, high thought and common sense to reveal what
may be learned when one submits to the contradictions a day
will deliver (and life's disregard for our efforts to make sense
of them). With deadpan, dead-on comic style, she pictures herself
munching a snack, watching tv - modernity's own means of emptying
the self. Four-armed Krishna at her side gesticulates as if
commenting on the evening drama's latest development;
his (un)remarkable presence
offers reassurance that home is always with her. But Watching
also light-handedly invokes the Bhagavad Gita. In this struggle
to locate and identify oneself between possible homes and possible
selves, Arjuna's chariot is a worn and cozy sofa and the battlefield
of Kurukshetra is a wall-less living room that the world casually
crashes. Her figure's seeming passivity a sign of her receptive
state, Watching ponders whether identity may be something more
likely to be found than constructed, more received than
researchable. With a knowing laugh, the picture recommends that
she accept identity's arbitrariness, its necessity and her own
absurdity...
..Brave enough to rethink the modern chestnut that equates self-definition
with rebellious self-assertion, Ms. Acharya deserves the attention
that will encourage her to continue to transform a once sentimental
longing for an irrecoverable past into a mature embrace of home...
Mid-Day,
Mumbai
2000 "Of women by
women", Jasmine Shah Varma, July 12
(show: Nayika)
....Dhruvi
Acharya, showing her work for the first time in Mumbai, is showing
an impressive work. A New York based artist, her complex work
is called Saturday Night. There is a lot happening in her canvas a woman is
seeing watching TV, and at the same time another woman trying
to paint, and yet another with kitchen utensils, another sleeping
and waking up (very interestingly portrayed). Subdued colors
and curious details make you wonder where this artist was all
this while. Says Acharya about her inspiration: "My
paintings deal with the identity of women from my perspective.
I have been in New York for five years and I have been observing
the differences between the way women are treated in India and
there."
News
India Times
2000 Activism - the Spiritual Alternative? October 27
(show: Diasporadics)
In
an effective representational triptych by Dhruvi Acharya a young
(painter) bows to culture shock and estrangement by pigging
out on WOW brand junk food in front of the TV….
Art
India
2000 "No
Place Like home", Karen Miller Lewis, Vol. 5, Issue 1
....Exhibited
in May 1999… 28 year old Dhruvi Acharya’s canvases
are allegories of self -consciousness awakened and fragmented
by the move from home. On indeterminate ground of dusky blue
or orange washes – reminiscent of Ajanta’s hues and
fluid space as well as the surfaces in flux by American artist
Lari Pittman - Acharya’s paintings inventory the fleeting
ciphers of places, people and events of her past in Bombay splayed
among symbols of her present in America. With a humorous edge
gleaned from American pop art, her most recent paintings acknowledge
the way home culture is always with her despite – or because
of – the time-and space-shattering effects of modern life.
Art
India
1999 "India
Abroad", International News, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (show:
"East Meets West")
....Influenced
by modernist abstraction, colour field painting and ancient
Indian art, Dhruvi Acharyaâs paintings evoked the emotion and
occasional romanticism of dreams.
City Paper, Baltimore
1999 "Subcontinental
Drift" (show: East Meets West), Mike Giuliano, June 16
.....Acharyaâs
paintings depict layered scenes in which all the women, birds,
buildings, domestic furnishings, and flowers appear to be floating
in memory rather than grounded in mundane reality. Some of the
images are from traditional Indian culture, others from modern
western culture.
The
artist accentuates this dreamlike melding of imagery through
her generous application of thin, all-over washes of paint in
the manner of a modern abstract painter. As a result, many of
the images are a bit blurry. Itâs as if Indian culture is running
through the artistâs mind, playing out across the canvas, and
being presented through (and partly submerged in) Western artistic
practice.
Figures
that presumably represent the artist and the cultural- identity
questions she faces are central to virtually every painting.
In ãWatchingä, the East-meets- West collision is stated most
directly: a four-armed blue-skinned Indian deity sits on a sofa
next to a woman dressed in Western clothing. Elsewhere in the
painting, other figures, buildings, and flowers swirl around
in a dreamy way.
If
many of the women in Acharyaâs paintings look as though theyâre
either sleeping or in a meditative state, others are alert.
These women clutch paint rushes and labor over canvases, no
doubt producing the very images we are seeing. Acharya ups the
self-reflexive ante in "The Filmmaker", in which a
man with a camera records the scene.
City
Paper, Baltimore
1998 show at Gomez Gallery, Mike Giuliano, June 17
....Dhruvi
Acharya, occupies a small room in the middle of the main gallery.
The roomâs curious placement enhances the sense that youâll
pop into this little chamber and see something entirely different
than whatâs in the main gallery, and thatâs indeed the case
with Acharyaâs tiny oil paintings. These usually feature a centered,
sari-clad woman surrounded by partially figured people, trees,
and towns amid monochromatic washes of color; the paintings
seem like reveries derived from the artistâs Indian heritage.
·prompt musings about how a woman in Indian society sees herself.
Sun
Spot (online)
1998 for show at Gomez Gallery, John Dorsey, June
....Acharya's
tiny paintings of people, buildings, flora and fauna all floating
around in an indeterminate space owe something to the traditional
Indian painting, but they also recall surrealism and fantasies
of Marc Chagall. Upon acquaintance, they offer more pleasure
than they at first appear to promise.
Baltimore
Sun
1998
"Quality matches quantity at Artscape 98", Glenn McNatt,
June 17
...and
a pair of figurative inspired paintings by Dhruvi Acharya, whose
narratives seem autobiographical, religious and political.
