Swati Sabale was born in Mumbai in 1975. She obtained a Master’s degree in Art and Painting in 1999, from the SNDT University, followed by an Art Teacher’s Diploma in 2000, from the Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya in Pune. In 2001 she obtained an ATC in Photography at the Sir JJ Institute of Applied Art, in Mumbai and then in 2019, an Art Masters at the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai. She has received awards in recognition for her work including the Prafulla Dahanukar Art Foundation Merit Award in 2021. She has exhibited in several group exhibitions and participated many times in the BIAF, Busan South Korea. In 2021 her work was displayed at the La Galerie Sonia Monti in Paris. She has two solo shows to her credit that unquestionably launched her success as a painter.

It is over the last two quiet decades of her career that Swati nurtured her art and matured into a painter working in a style that is very individualistic. Her works initially had the tentative and hesitant bearings of a quiet emergence but soon evolved to reveal a free spirit that looks at life around her, especially in the lives of women marked by inherent happiness or the tiresome burdens they bear in their daily life. The initial works reveal a deep sense of curiosity, exploring the inexhaustible and untiring world of women around her. Her sense of curiosity and attempts to explore ways of interpreting, found manifestation in her paintings, gradually evolving to a distinct statement. Domestic culture in homes and out in the urban landscape and relationships in the social fabric inspired her. Her works soon began to echo the concerns of construction and composition, building up the surface to contain a world speckled with the throb of life.

Mosaic-like specks ground her works. They offer a connection in space, a specked land that speaks of myriad situations in the multi- layers of everyday living. These colored flakes that float on the surface offer a connection and a relief. Those who people her canvases are seamlessly engaged, emerging, or blanketed over by these.  Within these settings she places the protagonists using a flattened perspective. Huddled together they convey a self-support that is heartening. As a committed visual artist she explores the contradictions in Indian society and attempts to free women from their societal burdens through an emotional portrayal of their quotidian realities. She employs a vibrant yet earthy palette that, when set against heavy emotional undertones, creates visually striking works.

Swati Sabale’s works speak of companionship, tender longing and freedom. One can find reflection of hidden tensions that exist between men and women, captured in the different roles they play. Yet, her women are strong individuals, assertive but not aggressive. She belongs to a generation of women artists in India who seamlessly weave personal stories into their work, producing visuals that make reference to a vast spectrum of situations from the political to the social. The defining lines in the contours of the figures folded within a confining space do not appear congested or impeded in any way yet resonate a snug companionship. On the whole her growing concern for social issues reflect in her paintings. Through her art she also attempts to depict the emotional quotient of everyday life of the dispossessed, while weighed down by circumstances in their dismal living they are not helpless but stoic in the face of their deprived situations.

Niyatee Shinde

Art Writer, Curator and Photography Historian