Alwar Balasubramaniam
{{Short description|Indian artist (born 1971)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2014}}
{{Use Indian English|date=March 2025}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{COI|date=August 2023}}
{{Primary sources|date=April 2025}}
{{Undisclosed paid|date=July 2025}}
}}
{{Infobox artist
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Bala
| image = Bala portrait.jpg
| image_size =
| birth_name = Alwar Balasubramaniam
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1971}}
| birth_place = Tamil Nadu, India
| education = {{Plainlist}}
- Government College of Fine Arts, BFA, 1990 – 1995
- Edinburgh Printmakers, 1997 – 1998
- University of Applied Arts Vienna, 1998 – 1999
{{endplainlist}}
| children = 1
}}
Alwar Balasubramani (born in 1971), known professionally as Bala, is an Indian painter, printmaker and sculptor. His work has been exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C; The Guggenheim Museum, New York; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; École des Beaux-Arts, Paris France. Bala has been a guest lecturer at the Art Department of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.{{Citation needed|date=July 2025}}
Early life and education
Alwar Balasubramaniam was born in 1971, in Tamil Nadu. In 1995, Bala graduated from Government College of Fine Arts with a specialisation in printmaking.{{cite web |last1=Talwar |first1=Deepak |title=Alwar Balasubramaniam Biography |url=https://www.talwargallery.com/attachment/en/601363a2276748771038c312/TextOneColumnWithFile/5a7d04a52bab2cd06d8b4567 |website=Talwar Gallery |access-date=24 April 2025 |location=New York |format=PDF |date=2024}} He continued his studies at the Edinburgh Printmakers and the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Work
File:Hold Nothing, 2012, Alwar Balasubramaniam at Phillips Coll. 2022.jpg in 2022]] File:Body as Shell, 2011-2015, Alwar Balasubramaniam.jpeg in 2022]]
Bala began his artistic journey with painting but shifted decisively toward sculpture and installation following a 1998 residency with the Putnam graphics studio at MacDowell Colony in Massachusetts.{{cite web |author1=Talwar Gallery |date=2025 |title=Alwar Balasubramaniam |url=https://www.talwargallery.com/artists/alwar-balasubramaniam#tab:slideshow |access-date=24 April 2025 |website=Talwar Gallery |location=New York, New Delhi}}{{cite web |author1=MacDowell |title=VISUAL ART : Alwar Bala |url=https://www.macdowell.org/artists/alwar-bala |access-date=26 April 2025 |website=MacDowell |location=Peterborough}} This transition marked a new phase in his practice, driven by an interest in multidimensionality and the physical encounter with form and perception. Bala's work centers on the human body and the bodies interaction with the material environment and intangible elements such as light, air, and shadow.{{cite journal |last1=Walsh |first1=Brienne |date=2012 |title=Alwar Balasubramaniam |journal=Modern Painters}} He is known for embedding sculptures in walls.{{cite journal |last1=Nath |first1=Deeksha |date=2012 |title='Do you know what you see?' The art of A. Balasubramaniam |journal=Harper's Bazaar India}}
His first solo exhibition in the United States was held at Talwar Gallery, New York, in 2002, featuring body-cast sculptures, monoprints, and a heat-sensitive work that revealed itself only under specific temperatures. Bala received further international recognition with his large-scale outdoor and site-specific installations including Sk(in) (2012) at The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., Unfixed Being (2005) at the Davidson College's Van Every/Smith Galleries, North Carolina, and Into Thin Air (2004) at Talwar Gallery, New York, which explore the tension between interior and exterior, matter and void.{{Citation needed|date=July 2025}} He received the Joan Miró Prize from the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, which led to a solo exhibition Traces (2002) with the foundation. He has been a part of numerous group exhibitions including Contemplating the Void at Guggenheim Museum and Knowledge of the Past Is the Key to the Future and Afterlives: Contemporary Art in the Byzantine Crypt and On Line at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He and the Biennales of Sydney and Singapore, and Knowledge of the Past Is the Key to the Future and Afterlives: Contemporary Art in the Byzantine Crypt ).{{Citation needed|date=July 2025}}
Personal life
Between 1998 and 2015, Bala lived and worked in Bengaluru, Karnataka. As of 2015, Bala lives and works in his ancestral village outside of Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu.{{cite journal |last1=Desai Gehi |first1=Reema |date=2025 |title=Building Beyond Boundaries : Nature as Canvas |journal=ART India |volume=27 |issue=3}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balasubramaniam, A.}}
Category:Artists from Bengaluru
Category:Indian contemporary painters
Category:Indian installation artists