Shanthamani M, born in 1967, is an art graduate from Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts, Mysore with post-graduate in Painting from M S University, Baroda. In 2004, she studied Paper-Making in Glasgow, Scotland with the Fellowship from the Charles Wallace Scholarship.
Her significant solo shows include *Neither Tree nor Ash*, Suzanne Tarasieve Gallery, Paris, 2016; *Reflections*, a multimedia exhibition on Ganga, Bangalore, 2010; *Carbon Myths: sculpture and installations*, Gallery Helene Lamarque curated by Anne Maniglier, USA, 2010; *Past Continuous: Digital Photomontages*, Samuha Artist Collective, 2010; *Frozen Phoenix*, Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore, 2008; *Silent Speak*, Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, 2007; *Gestures Speak*, Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore, 2007: *Fluid Fragments*, Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore, 2003; *Mapping Fragments*, Sakshi Gallery, Bangalore, 1996.
Shanthamani has exhibited widely in India and around the world. Her selected shows include *Bamboo for Paris* at École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris 2018: *B. Reigns* with Marc Thebault at Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore, 2017: *The Present: Bangalore – Colombo* at JDA Pereira Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka and National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore, 2015. In 2014, she participated in Kochi Muziris Biennale, Art Brussels – represented by Suzanne Taraseive Gallery, Brussels & India Art Fair, New Delhi.
Shanthamani has received many awards and fellowships including National Senior Fellowship in 2012-14 and Junior Fellowship in 2006-08 from Ministry of Tourism and Culture, New Delhi ; India Sri-Lanka Foundation assistance for artistic collaboration *“The Present: Colombo-Bangalore”*, 2014; Charles Wallace Scholarship to work in Glasgow, UK, 2004: Inlaks Take Off Grant, 1992.
Shanthamani articulates the centrality of charcoal as material in some of her works. Charcoal best represents the transformation undergone by the city of Bengaluru, where new professionals talk of being ‘burnt-out’. Charcoal also expressed the city’s state of constant change, a permanent condition of ‘in-between’, since it is itself between wood and ash. The form of carbon that is most easily available to Shanthamani is wood charcoal. As a material, it is burnt, morbid but solid. It is also in a state of in-between: neither tree nor ash. Fragmented and fragile, yet like a phoenix rising from the ashes, it comes together for one last time to express itself in her work. Charcoal’s inherent capacity to express the polarity of life and death, mortality and immortality helps to deal with multifarious issues in her works.
She lives and works in Bangalore, Karnataka.
