Ranjani Shettar

Ranjani Shettar (born 1977) is a visual artist from Bengaluru, India known for her large-scale sculptural installations. Her work has been displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Shettar received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Sculpture in 1998 and a Masters of Fine Arts in Sculpture in 2000, from the College of Fine Art, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, and the Institute of Advanced Studies, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath in Bangalore, respectively.
Shettar currently lives and works in Karnataka, India.
Shettar’s first exhibition was in 2004 at the Talwar Gallery in New York. Since then, her works have been featured in museums worldwide.
Shettar's work have been the subject of various publications from the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and galleries like the Talwar and Marian Goodman Gallery. Shettar was awarded the Hebbar Foundation award in 1999 and 2003, as well as the Charles Wallace Trust Award in 2004, the Sanskriti award in 2008, and the Aditya Vikram Birla Kalakiran Puraskar in 2011 for her works.
The Barbican Centre in London commissioned Shettar's first major institutional show in Europe in 2023, titled "Cloud songs on the horizon," the project features a series of expansive suspended sculptures spanning the Conservatory's space.
In her works, Shettar combines natural and industrial materials, including beeswax, wood, organic dyes, vegetal pastes, lacquer, steel, and cloth, to create large-scale installations. Shettar draws inspiration from India's history of craft traditions, incorporating many of their time-honored techniques into her creative process.
Shettar's hand-carved wood sculptures involve deliberate preservation of the natural textures of the material.
Shettar’s woodwork also exists as wall-mounted compositions. One example is Touch Me Not (2006-2007), now a permanent part of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art's collection.
Shettar has created immersive installations, such as Seven Ponds and a Few Rain Drops (2017), which entered the permanent collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2018. Other examples include Sing Along (2008-2009), now in the collection of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
Shettar has also created works connecting hand-molded wax beads with cotton thread. In her work Just a bit more (2005-2006), which is now in the permanent collection of MoMA New York, the artist relied on the lightweight and translucent quality of the material to create an intricate web of threads.
In addition to organic mediums, Shettar also uses industrial materials. One such piece, Me, No, Not Me, Buy Me, Eat Me, Wear Me, Have Me, Me, No, Not Me (2006-2007) was featured at the inaugural exhibition of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's sculptural garden.
Shettar's projects are mostly sculptural, however, she has experimented in other forms as well. One such project is Varsha, an artist's book in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art (New York). In 2021, Shettar was invited to create a special print titled Alae alae to commemorate The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 150th anniversary.
Talwar Gallery, Wings of the river, New York, NY, US
The Barbican, Cloud songs on the horizon, London, England
Talwar Gallery, Summer garden and rain clouds, New Delhi, India
The Phillips Collection, Washington DC, US
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seven ponds and a few raindrops, NY
Talwar Gallery, On and on it goes on, New York, NY, US
Talwar Gallery, Bubble trap and a double bow, New Delhi, India
Talwar Gallery, Night skies and daydreams, New York, NY, US
Talwar Gallery, Between the sky and earth, New Delhi, India
Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, High tide for a blue moon, Mumbai, India
Museum of Modern Art, Varsha, Artist's book, New York, NY
National Gallery of Victoria, Dewdrops and Sunshine, Melbourne, Australia
Hermes Foundation, Flame of The Forest, Singapore
Talwar Gallery, Present Continuous, New Delhi, India
Talwar Gallery, New York, NY, US
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, New Work, CA, US
The Modern Art Museum, FOCUS, Fort Worth, TX, US
Institute of Contemporary Art, Momentum 10, MA, US
Talwar Gallery, Epiphanies, New Delhi, India
Talwar Gallery, New York, NY, US
Talwar Gallery, Indian Spring, New York, NY, US
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Afterimages: Echoes of the 1960s in the Fisher and SFMOMA Collections, CA
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, US
Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Center, Confluence: Sangam, Mumbai, India
Talwar Gallery, From Three, Two, New York, NY, US
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 150th Anniversary, New York, NY, US
Talwar Gallery, as the wind blows, New York, NY, US
Pizzuti Collection, Visions from India, Columbus, OH, US
5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Seven Contemporaries, New Delhi, India
Henry Art Gallery, Now Here is also Nowhere, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Crossings, New Delhi, India
Pizzuti Collection, Teasers, Columbus, Ohio
Museum of Contemporary Art, barely there (Part II), Detroit, Michigan
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Time Unfolded, New Delhi, India
Art Tower Mito, Quiet Attentions, Mito, Japan
Museum of Modern Art, On Line, New York, NY
10th Liverpool Biennial, Touched, Liverpool, England
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Sculpture Garden Inaugural Exhibition, CA
Carnegie Museum of Art, Life on Mars: 55th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, PA
9th Lyon Biennial, Lyon, France
Sharjah Biennale, Sharjah
XV Sydney Biennale, Zones of Contact, Sydney, Australia
Marian Goodman Gallery, Freeing the line, New York, NY, US
ARTPACE, Artist in Residence, San Antonio, TX, US
Fine Arts Center, University of Massachusetts, Transition & Transformation, MA, US
Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, J'en rêve (Dream on), Paris, France
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Out There, Norwich, UK
Talwar Gallery, (desi)re, New York, NY, US
Wexner Center for the Arts, Landscape Confection, Columbus, Ohio
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA, US
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, Texas, US
Khoj International, New Delhi, India
Walker Art Center, How Latitudes Become Forms, Minneapolis, MN
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Per L'Arte, Torino, Italy
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, Texas, US
Synergy Art Foundation, Concept Shop, Bangalore, India