Ashwini Bharathula is a fine artist with a PhD in materials science and engineering. She quit her corporate job to pursue fine art full-time, and now she focuses on creating oil paintings from life.
As a child growing up in South India, she loved to draw. Any spare moment she had would find her drawing her favorite Hindu gods or Disney characters. She added that her educational background focused on the sciences, but in her mind she never disassociated science from the arts. She pursued a bachelors degree in materials science and engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, while still sketching on the side as a hobby. She moved to Columbus, Ohio to study for her masters and PhD in materials science."I still hadn't tried painting by now. But my PhD advisor recommended that I take a course just for fun, and I thought, 'Why not try painting?' So I took a painting class in acrylics that summer, and it was my first introduction to painting. I did not do well at all - the paintings I completed were mediocre at best - but it gave me a taste of how paint feels on a canvas and I realized that painting was both therapeutic and meditative and that I really enjoyed it."
After grad school she went into the corporate world in Portland, Oregon, but the itch to paint remained. She eventually made the decision to quit her corporate job. At first, she spent some time working on a variety of ventures at the intersection of science and art."I started a YouTube channel with a few other like-minded people, teaching science in a way that's more intuitive. And I started collaborating with TED-Ed (a part of TEDTalks), helping to produce short educational animation movies that received millions of views. During this time I also started to paint more seriously - still in acrylic though - and then I finally took the plunge to focus solely on art. "I realized that painting brought me a lot of joy. The few hours I spent fully focused on creating a painting from scratch - where you start with nothing and by the end of those hours have made something - were so satisfying and made me truly happy. There was a voice inside that indicated I should pursue this. I definitely had plenty of people asking me "Are you sure? and the thing is, you're not sure. Nobody can guarantee that you're going to be successful - you're essentially shooting in the dark. But I realized I had to take the plunge, give it a chance, and see where it went. I've been painting full-time for about four years now."
Ashwini was interviewed by BoldBrush where she shares more about her inspiration and sample works. Click HERE to review the blog post.
