Himani Gupta Indian, b. 1985

Himani Gupta, a London-based Indian artist, explores themes of place, ecology, and identity through her evocative paintings and drawings. Her work engages through a deeply personal and embodied lens, referencing art history, film, urban theory, mythology, memory, storytelling, and personal archives. 

Her layered compositions, led by both imagination and observation, build an deep artistic language of colour, form and mark-making. These elements form the foundations of her paintings, reflect how we navigate the world, both physically and culturally. Gupta’s process is intuitive and tactile, involving acts of excavating, mixing, scraping and assembling. Each layer engages with landscapes, maps, and bodies, with a focus on spaces and relationships between objects.

Informed by her academic background, including a Masters in Urban Planning and Real Estate from The Bartlett, UCL, Gupta’s approach is self-taught, grounded in experience and collaboration. She has also completed a drawing program at the Royal Drawing School in London and recently undertook an artist residency at Dumfries House in Scotland, awarded by the Royal Drawing School. She is currently on the TURPS offsite program for painters. 

Gupta’s socially engaged projects and academic collaborations form an integral part of her studio practice. Notable shows and projects include; Her work and essay featured in the  to ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Planetary Destruction’ (2023), an anthology funded by the Wellcome Trust; A solo exhibition ‘Governing (Im-) Mobilities: International Borders, Borderlands, and Bordercities – A Visual Perspective’ at Durham University in 2019; And a solo show ‘Peace, Inclusive and Sustainability - A Spatial Perspective’ held at UNESCO in New Delhi in 2018. Her work is held in private collections worldwide.