Ashok Bhowmik
Born in Kolkata, Bhowmik graduated from Govt. College of Art & Craft, Kolkata, in Western Painting. His solo exhibitions include ‘Embodied Black’, Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata (2017) and shows at Nandan Museum, Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati (inaugurated by K.G. Subramanyan) (2010); Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata (2009); Tamarind Art Gallery, New York (2008); Tao Gallery, Mumbai (2006-07) and numerous others. He has participated in group exhibitions such as Kala Bhavana faculty exhibition, Lalit Kala, Delhi, Patna (2013); Centre Art Gallery, Kolkata (1994-1999). He participated in an exhibition in West Germany sponsored by the Indo-German Cultural Society (1978) and in Holland (1981). He has participated as an invitee artist in many exhibitions, namely Allegories and Voices – A Contemporary Drawing Exhibition (Online), ‘The377191 Wall- freedom to Express, and Freedom to Choose. Gallery Beyond, Mumbai (2015); and Indian Contemporary Paintings at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, organised by Art World Sarala International (1999).
Ashok Bhowmik is one of those artists who has an exceptional concern in creating visuals which originate a magical creative world of their own. Since the early twenty-first century, Ashok is maturely changing his ways of expression and he is possibly engaged in rediscovering a new path of visualisation. In the artist’s own words, “Art is an autonomous language and I am pretty comfortable with that but the moment I am compelled to talk about it I feel that art is leaving its own sovereign linguistic domain and it is losing its own nuances.” Bhowmik’s work is predominantly figurative.