Sheela Gowda Takes Sam Gilliam Award for ‘Poetic Yet Politically Charged Installations’
The Bhadravati‑born artist uses cow dung, hair, incense, and tar drums in artworks stemming from her observations of life in South India. Save to My Ocula
Bangalore-based artist Sheela Gowda has received the 2025 Sam Gilliam Award for her ‘consistently ambitious’ work transforming everyday materials from South India into installations exploring ritual and resilience.
Established in 2023 in honour of the American colour field painter and sculptor’s legacy as a teacher and advocate, the 75,000 USD award is given to an artist who would benefit from the support in a ‘transformative’ way.
Presented in partnership with Dia Art Foundation, the award hopes to pass on the critical support Gilliam received from grants.
Bhadravati-born Gowda was chosen for her work incorporating everyday and organic materials like cow dung, hair, incense, and tar drums into artwork reflecting on life in urban and rural South India.
Her work will be featured in an exhibition at a Dia Art Foundation location in New York this autumn.
The Foundation called her installations ‘poetic yet politically charged’, adding that Gowda ‘transforms humble materials into powerful reflections on resilience, ritual, and the interconnectedness of human experience’.
Gowda, meanwhile, identified with the work of the award’s namesake.
‘Gilliam’s lifelong practice of interrogation and experimentation is something that I identify with, and his deep involvement with the art community is inspiring,’ she said.
The annual award is funded by the Sam Gilliam Foundation, whose president Annie Gawlak is Gilliam’s widow.
Gawlak said the selection of Gowda reaffirms the award’s commitment to Gilliam’s legacy, ‘amplifying support and awareness for today’s practicing artists and their important work’.
The inaugural award went to Ibrahim Mahama–a Ghanaian artist known for ambitious installations that wrap buildings in repurposed jute sacks to reflect on histories of labour and trade. —[O]
Main image: Sheela Gowda. Courtesy Dia Art Foundation. Photo: BR Vishwanath.
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