Pushpa Kumari

Pushpa Kumari (b. 2000, Jharkhand, India) is a visual artist whose practice explores sensitivity, emotional complexity, and vulnerability within the structures of a patriarchal society. Working primarily in painting and mixed media, her works are visceral and emotionally charged, privileging sentiment and intuition over detached objectivity. Through delicate layers of watercolor, ink, and acrylic, she investigates interior states, psychological tensions, and the subtle contradictions embedded in everyday life. Rooted in lived experience and close observation, Kumari’s practice transforms personal turmoil into a poetic visual language marked by quiet unease and ambiguity. She is drawn to ordinary moments where intimacy and estrangement coexist, where beauty carries weight, softness holds resistance, and fragility becomes a site of strength. The body, in her work, emerges not merely as representation but as a sensitive register of emotion, humor, care, and defiance. Kumari completed her BFA at Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, and her MVA in Creative Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda. Her work has been exhibited in Pushpabaug at Anant Art Gallery, Noida, and First Take 2024 at Abir Art Gallery, Ahmedabad. She is the recipient of the Abir First Take Award (2024) and was part of the Chemould CoLab Summer Residency (2025). Through her evolving practice, Kumari continues to question inherited visual and social scripts, opening spaces where vulnerability, resistance, and emotional residue quietly persist.

Academics

BFA in Painting from Kalabhavana, Visva Bharti University. (2018-22)

MVA in Creative Painting from Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda. (2022-24)

Awards

Abir First Take award 2024