Shivani Mithbaokar

so thrilled and honored to be the recipient of the 2026 UC Berkeley South Asia Artist Prize 🌷

happy to be sharing this highlight from earlier this year 🌬️ I am honored to be included in Issue.176 (North East) of New American Paintings @newamericanpaintings , Selections by Laura Phipps, Associate Curator at Whitney Museum of American Art such a gift to peer through the spreads of the issue, curator’s essay and comments, and to feel so seen! Also special to share this issue w/ @noormah.jamal 🌹 And @mhambouz 💫who I had the pleasure being in group show with recently Cheers 💌

Learn more about our 2026 SAAI Prize winners ahead of the Award Ceremony and Zoom talks on April 15, 2026. To register for the talks, head to the link in our bio. Shivani Mithbaokar is the recipient of the 2026 UC Berkeley South Asia Artist Award. Born in Mumbai, India, she is a painter based in Brooklyn, New York working across printmaking, ceramics, and found materials such as wallpaper, fabrics and furniture. She constructs personal mythologies by reimagining decorative motifs as abstract anatomies, exploring the body as a landscape of healing, memory and transformation. Mithbaokar has been an artist-in-residence at NARS Foundation and has exhibited in group shows across United States and internationally, including at Latitude Gallery (New York, NY), Field of Play Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Hilton Hotel Times Square display organized by Dinner Gallery (New York, NY), Yui Gallery (New York, NY), 440 Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Greenpoint Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Arsenal Gallery (New York, NY), Blanc Gallery (Philippines) among others. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, Hyperallergic, Friend of an Artist, and her self-published artist book is available at Printed Matter. She holds a BFA in Illustration from Parsons School of Design and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute. She is included in the White Columns Artist Registry and is a recipient of the 2026 Powerhouse Arts Artist Subsidy Program. Works featured: A Sacred Submarine, Gouache on wallpaper, wood, 45 x 45 inches, 2020 - 25 Heart Take Flight, Gouache and Acrylic on Wallpaper, 11 x 10 inches, 2024 Ancestor ii, Found Fabric, Fabric Threads, Acrylic and Gouache on Canvas, 62 x 34 inches, 2024 Insect Woman ii, Fabric Threads, Acrylic on Found Furniture, 24 x 18 x 26 inches, 2024 Brown(stone) Woman, Lithograph print on linen and canvas, Gouache, Acrylic and fabric threads on Linen, 46 x 36 inches, 2025 #SAAI #SouthAsiaArtInitiative #SouthAsiaArt #ArtistAward #ArtPrize #UCBerkeley

she’s elastic ➿➰ . . painting details from archive

Last week to catch two of my works A Sacred Submarine (2020 - 25) and Ancestor ii (2024) on view at @latitudegallery_newyork until Jan 24 Some detail shots, of both works in relevance to overarching themes of self-discovery, the body, collective memory ~ evolving materially and abstractly _______ A Sacred Submarine, Gouache on wallpaper, wooden frame, 37.50 x 36.20 inches, 2020 - 25 Ancestor ii, Found Fabric, Fabric Threads, Acrylic and Gouache on Canvas, 62 x 34 inches, 2024

tender moments from Home-Coming, my mfa thesis exhibition from spring this year ~ threads expand to the gallery walls and floor slipping from different generations of my paintings, creating a soft container and a terrain for them to land on ~ reminding me to bring in more softness into the new year 🫧🌷

some moments from my studio at NARS these past six months 🥰🤲🏼♾️ grateful for the time and space here, and to share my practice with peers, studio visitors and friends 💚

Birthing Self II, 2025 on view at NARS Foundation until Dec 16! Gouache, Acrylic, fabric threads, glazed ceramic and canvas cutout on Canvas, 35 x 70  inches Borrowing motifs from my older paintings on wallpaper — in glazed ceramic and canvas cut-out collaged together — sits the insect woman motif (from Insect Woman, 2023) inside the decorative contours of the body extracted from my older work (Birthing Self, 2022), beginning to root itself within. This progression toward abstraction translates to an ongoing journey of shedding conditioned skin and exploring what it means to embody safety within. Made during my residency at NARS Foundation @narsfoundation and is part of Season IV Cohort Exhibition ~ Cross Crossings to Cross, curated by Jungmin Cho @nowherejmc ____ Photo 1 : Photographed by KC Crow Maddux. Courtesy of NARS Foundation Photo 5: Courtesy of NARS Foundation Photo 6: Birthing Self, 2022 in studio Photo 7 : Insect Woman, 2023 in studio

Last weekend to catch Visual Cache at @fieldofplaygallery curated by @eriking 💛 Closing Reception and Artist Talk, Sunday Nov 9, 4-6pm “Shivani Mithbaokar creates interior spaces where decorative motifs resemble bodily forms, treating the body as a type of landscape. Her works, Cycle Breaker and Heart Take Flight, are painted directly onto wallpaper, using existing patterns to unveil figures within reimagined environments. By merging imagery and ornamentation, Mithbaokar transforms patterned surfaces into psychological landscapes that carry traces of memory, emotion, and transformation. She describes her process as an excavation of inner worlds, layering figures and symbolic settings onto wallpaper to explore female agency and the body’s connection with nature. Through this material and conceptual layering, her work constructs new mythologies that challenge social hierarchies, reclaiming space for healing and self-definition. . . . Visual Cache proposes that memory is not a fixed archive, but a living fluid field where images, languages, and bodies serve as temporary vessels of experience. Similar to the visual cache in our minds, these artworks invite viewers to navigate the space between what is seen and what is retained, holding space for both persistence and transformation.” Featuring Angelica Yudasto, Edward Salas, Xinan Helen Ran, Michael Hambouz, Quindo Miller, Pablo Mariano Diaz, Paz Rocio Mallea Rubilar, and Shivani Mithbaokar Install shots 2-4 by Daniel Greer

~ install shots ~ from @narsfoundation NARS Season III Residency Exhibition It would hurt us – were we awake – , Curated by Daniela Meyer @_d.mayer 🌟 “Indian artist Shivani Mithbaokar constructs a disjointed, spectral figure across four works: Ancestor’s Garden (2024–25), Burial Site (2022–25), and Corbel I and Corbel II (2025). On the floor, Ancestor’s Garden outlines a human-scaled, headless form in wispy white gouache and acrylic on found floral wallpaper, its elongated neck surging toward the wall. Punctuated by acid-green flourishes that hint at organic growth and decay, the figure lingers as a trace, simultaneously absorbed into and hovering over the work’s surface. Above, the painting Burial Site acts as a silent sentinel: hung at the height of the missing head, its small funerary mask in gouache and gold leaf on matching wallpaper casts its gaze downward. Mounted between the two paintings are Corbel I and Corbel II, glazed ceramic sculptures inspired by architectural supports from New York’s built environment. Their biomorphic phallic and vulvic forms reimagine stone ornament as soft anatomy, blurring structure and flesh. Together, the works assemble a disembodied anatomy trapped in limbo—an invisible presence indelibly imprinted on the imagined domestic space it once called home.” the show closes in a few days, Sept 16! ❇️

🌼 Opening Today 🌼 so excited to be showing brand new ceramic works in conversation with my recent wallpaper paintings at @narsfoundation residency exhibition 🪄 some images while installing this week 🙃 Curated by Daniela Mayer @_d.mayer 🌟💚 Opening Reception : Fri, Aug 29, 6-8pm, NARS Main Gallery - 4th Floor, 201 46th, Brooklyn, NY

Tender Tendrils, 2024-25 acrylic, found fabric, threads on canvas, and found object, 14.5 x 12.5 inches 📸 @1888fsavini