Sonia Rodrigues

All artistic endeavors of man are symbols through which one communicates the deep and abiding feelings, the emotions, which are beyond ordinary speech. As the writer George Bernard Shaw says - "You use a glass mirror to see your face. You use a work of art to see your soul." While ordinary people communicate through speech and simple action, an artist communicates through his symbol of forms & colour. My painting is an endeavor of events that lie in the subconscious mind, that are etched out on my canvas giving way to forms in a very figurative style creating a mysterious aura sometimes fairy tale like, sometimes too secretive for comprehension. My paintings are centered around a story of relationships. The tenderness of the human mind, body and soul. The meeting of human and organic forms of nature. This is the story of relationship."

Sonia Rodrigues Sabharwal was born in Mumbai in 1968. She successfully obtained her Bachelors degree in Fine Art from the Goa College of Arts, Mumbai University in 1989 and even during her stint at college exhibited her works every year at the annual State Art Exhibitions that were hosted by the Government of Goa. Soon after her graduation, her work as an artist came to be noticed nationally, and in 1992 and 1993 she was awarded with a research grant from the Lalit Kala Academy in New Delhi to further her work and study of the history of Indian paintings.

In what is only a very short career, Rodrigues Sabharwal has prolifically exhibited her work in group shows across the country every year, except 1999, when she took a short hiatus from painting. She held her first solo show at Gallery Steps in New Delhi, 1995, and there has been no looking back for this young artist since then.

Now, having number of individual and group shows to her credit, Sabharwal is basking in the recognition she has deservedly won. This artist also spent some time occupying the post of a designer for the Office of Development Commissioner of Handicrafts, New Delhi, where she assisted in conducting workshops organized by the ministry to design and manufacture toys in Mumbai and New Delhi.

The artist lives and works in Goa.