Nilima Sheikh has engaged with art for over four decades. Complex narratives on loss, migration and exile, her paintings explore these themes in multiple ways, often by returning to a site of violence, as in her works on Kashmir or, as with the body of work in ‘When Champa Grew Up’, by centring on the experience of womanhood.
Sheikh describes herself as part of the third generation of artists who have engaged with Indian traditions. Although trained initially in Western-style oil painting, she moved to using traditional art forms, inspired also by her mentor K G Subramanyan.
One of the most important practitioners of contemporary Indian art today, Nilima Sheikh lives and works in Baroda and Delhi.