Bikash Chandra Senapati

Bikash Chandra Senapati is a Vadodara based artist from Odisha. He completed his BFA from Chitra Kala Parisath, Bengaluru, and his MFA from Indira Kala Sangeet Vishwavidyalaya, Khairagarh.

His early years in Bengaluru marked a significant transition navigating language, distance, and the unfamiliar rhythms of city life. After completing his undergraduate studies, he spent four years travelling across different cities, engaging closely with varied social and cultural contexts, a period that proved formative in shaping his sensitivity toward lived experiences and everyday narratives. His growing interest in materiality and process led him to experiment with diverse mediums, including printmaking, which he further explored during his postgraduate studies in Khairagarh.

Drawing lines remains his primary language — a meditative and grounding process through which forms open new directions to explore the conversations, tensions, and overlaps between past and present, nature and city, movement and stillness. He states, "my lines emerge intuitively: sometimes quiet and organic, echoing the fluidity of rural terrain; sometimes structured and geometric, responding to the order and pressure of urban spaces."

His work reflects an ongoing dialogue between his upbringing in rural Odisha and his later urban encounters. Drawing from memories, observations, and interactions with people across different geographies, he constructs layered narratives that speak of displacement, belonging, and transition, capturing the subtle tensions and harmonies between rural life and the complexities of contemporary urban existence. 

His solo exhibitions include SAMA, Udaipur (2025) and NIROOPAN: Representation of Nature's Eternal Journey at Triveni Gallery, New Delhi (2021). He has participated in group exhibitions widely across India including Baroda Unbound: City as Studio at Exhibit 320, New Delhi (2025), HYD Art, Hyderabad (2025), the New Delhi Satellite Event of the 8th International Biennale of Non-Objective Arts (2025), Shape Shifters & Storytellers at Archer Art Gallery, Ahmedabad (2025), Voices From India by SOS Art at Nine Fish Art Gallery, Mumbai (2025), Print From Our Adda at Nine Fish Art Gallery, Mumbai (2025), IMPRINT Printmaking Art Exhibition at The Art Route Gallery, Gurugram (2025), Printed Voices From India by SOS Art at Kennedy Heights Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA (2024), Memories 2: The Book Art Show at The Art Route Gallery, Gurugram (2024), and the Kochi-Muziris Student Biennale, Kochi (2019), among others.

Bikash has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Chandraangan Residency, Udaipur (2025), Summer Residency at Space Studio, Baroda (2025), Junior Fellowship by the Center for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT), Ministry of Culture, Government of India (2023–24), the 96th AIFACS Award in Drawing, New Delhi (2023), the ABIR First Take Award, Ahmedabad (2022), the State Award in Printmaking from Odisha Lalit Kala Akademi, Bhubaneshwar (2021), the KHOJ Support Grant, New Delhi (2020), and the J.D. Gondhalekar Award at the Lokmanya Tilak 33rd Art Exhibition, Pune (2020).

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