Kavita Shah is a visual artist, educationist, and curator with over 35 years of experience in printmaking. She is the co-founder of the Chhaap Foundation for Printmaking Trust in Vadodara, a non-profit organisation that operates a community print studio dedicated to experimenting with print mediums and techniques. Under her guidance, Chhaap has hosted more than 25 senior artists from over 15 countries and promotes non-toxic printmaking practices, inviting renowned print masters from Japan, America, and Europe to conduct workshops for local artists. Kavita has also collaborated with the Japan Foundation on significant projects focusing on water-based woodblock print techniques.
As an academic, Kavita has served as an Associate Professor of Basic Design at the College of Architecture, a lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts, and an art teacher at various prestigious schools. She has been a jury member for postgraduate examinations at multiple colleges and institutes. Additionally, she was a consultant for the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, where she helped redesign and revitalise print studios, and has mentored art teachers through Art 1st. Kavita has been elected as a board member of ResArtis, a Netherlands-based artist group, for five years.
The early 19th-century travel writer, Maria Graham, stands at the centre of the Lands, Real and Imagined: Women Artists Respond to the Art & Travel Writings of Maria Graham (1785–1842) exhibition, along with her four published travel journals of India, Italy, Brazil, and Chile, and her comprehensive history of Spain. The written and visual documents Graham produced in response to her travels, including her detailed and often farsighted observations about the lands and peoples she encountered, continue to be important foci for scholarly research that dwells at the intersection of gender, travel writing, and culture.
The five accomplished women artists who were invited into this exhibition project—Kavita Shah, India; Francesca Genna, Italy; Leila Danzinger, Brazil; Isabel Cauas, Chile; and Paula Bonet, Spain—collectively respond to Graham’s distinct “gaze” on their own countries, while also providing their individual perspectives on her writings, her visual art, and her extraordinary range of disciplinary interests. The breadth and sensitivity of their responses also illuminate the complex trajectory of Graham’s personal as well as professional growth, as she lived and learned from her travels. The exhibition made its debut at the Fisher Gallery at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio from February 1–July 15, 2022 and is the result of a three-year creative collaboration supported by the scholarly research and curatorial expertise of Drs. Patricia Frick (Professor of English) and Janice Glowski (Art Historian and Director of The Frank Museum of Art and Galleries) at Otterbein.
