Hemi Bawa was born in 1948. Her initiation into the formal world of art was through her training at the Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi from 1969 onward. Today she is widely recognised for her commitment to developing the niche field of contemporary glass art in India. A painter, sculptor, and multidisciplinary practitioner, she believes in an organic relationship with every medium she works with, deriving the utmost in terms of its formal and material attributes as well as metaphorical significance. From her first solo exhibition at Sridharini Gallery in 1980, to her current experimental showcase ‘Bodies of Light’ (Arspeaks India, 2020), Hemi Bawa’s journey as an artist has been as much connected to intuitive explorations as the mastering of skills. One of the core values of her artistic repertoire is her ability to experiment continually and respond to her environment through her work.

Hemi Bawa’s artisanal cast-glass sculptures, works employing other glass techniques, largescale installations in stone, fiberglass, and metal, and mixed media experiments all demonstrate a sense of innate strength and visual harmony that extend from her personalised aesthetics. With a career of more than five decades behind her, she has received the prestigious Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour awarded by the Government of India, for her service to the arts (2009). Her works have been invited and collected by prominent museums such as the Corning Museum of Glass, New York (2005) and the Sculpture Garden at Tuscany, Italy (2001). She was commissioned by Coca Cola to make a sculpture for the Antlanta Olympic Games (1996). Her work can  be  found  in  major  public  and private collections, and the Harry Winston Brand facilitated and published a book on Hemi Bawa in 2010. 

Applying herself to constant renewal conceptually and stylistically, Hemi Bawa uses her expressive language to articulate internalized experiences of time and place, people and encounters. Employing a combination of geometric abstraction with organic figuration and spatial arrangements, she fluently presents interactions of colour, texture, light and form that draw emotional responses rather  than  narrative  interpretations. She  imbues  her  work  with  a  sense  of