Avantika Bawa is an artist, curator, and academic. She has an MFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1998) and a BFA in the same from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India (1995). She has participated in the Skowhegan, MacDowell, Jentel, Vermont Studio Center, Kochi Biennial Foundation and Djerassi (forthcoming) residencies.

Noteworthy solo exhibits include shows at; Schneider Museum, Ashland, OR, Suyama Space, Seattle, WA, The Columbus Museum, GA; Saltworks Gallery and the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta, GA; Nature Morte and Gallery Maskara in India; Disjecta, Portland, OR. She was part of the South by East Biennial in Boca Raton, FL; and juried group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, GA, The Drawing Center and Smack Mellon, NY and SAVAC, Surrey Art Gallery, Canada.

Her work has been reviewed in international publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Art Papers, Art Lies, Art India, Art Asia Pacific, The Oregonian, and The Times of India amongst others. Bawa’s curatorial work began with a hotel room show during the Art in Chicago fair (98’) and has grown through her studio and gallery, aquaspace – a laboratory for new and multi media art. In April 2004 she was part of a team that launched Drain – Journal for Contemporary Art and Culture. www.drainmag.com. In 2014 Avantika was appointed to the board of the Oregon Arts Commission. She is currently Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at Washington State University, Vancouver, WA. www.avantikabawa.net.

PNCA’s Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies summer 2014 session includes a Summer Lecture series featuring talks by visiting artists that are free and open to the public. With the visiting artists & scholars Low-Res MFA students will participate in a site-specific project retreat at Leland Iron Works, workshops through the Fashioning Cascadia exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, studio visits, critiques, and demonstrations each week throughout the summer session.