Shruti Ghatak
Shruti Ghatak is an interdisciplinary artist based in Seattle whose practice spans large-scale figurative painting and terracotta relief sculpture, exploring the intersections of mythology, migration, identity, and the natural world. Through layered visual narratives, her work moves between the mythic and the everyday, reflecting on how personal memory, cultural traditions, and lived experience shape contemporary life.
Drawing from South Asian storytelling traditions, Indian temple reliefs, and the landscapes she inhabits, Ghatak creates expansive compositions where figures, animals, and environments become sites of transformation and reflection. Material experimentation with clay, pigment, and surface plays a central role in her practice, linking historical craft traditions with contemporary visual language.
Shruti is the recipient of numerous grants, residencies, and awards supporting her work. Her practice has been featured in press and media publications, and her works are held in many private collections across the United States.
She holds an MFA in Painting from the New York Studio School and a MS in Color Technology from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. Shruti lives and works in Seattle, WA. and currently teaches as an adjunct professor of drawing and painting at South Seattle College, alongside her studio practice.
Artist Statement
My creative practice centers on paintings and terracotta relief sculptures that explore the intersection of mythology, migration, women empowerment and cultural identity. I often draw inspiration from literature, music, poetry, lyrics, conversation and the natural world-both physical and emotional. Forests, rivers, seasonal shifts, birds and animals-all of which find their way into my work as both symbolic and observational elements. Through these motifs, I merge the everyday with the mythic or the mythic with the everyday, creating spaces where personal memory, ancestral traditions, and contemporary life intersect. My work tries to bridge these ancient storytelling traditions with present-day experiences.
I grew up in the Eastern part of India surrounded by temples with terracotta relief sculptures. With no access to galleries, museums, or art books in my childhood, these temple reliefs were my first exposure to art. I began making terracotta relief sculptures as supportive studies for my paintings, but over time, they evolved into independent works with their own identity and voice.
Paintings and relief sculptures both are a big part of my practice, symbolizing memory, history, and transformation. Rooted in Indian traditions of storytelling through temple and ritual sculpture, I try to investigate the material and symbolic weight of storytelling as a means of connecting generations and geographies.