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Kavitha Balakrishnan is an artist, bi-lingual author and art educator based in Kerala. She has an MA in Art History from M S University Baroda(1998). Her area of PhD work is the print-picture modernity and literary-visual culture in 20th century India, specifically the periodicals in Malayalam language (2009). Since 2000 Kavitha has engaged with the changing scenario of practicing, writing and educating art and art-history in India, contributing critical reviews in both Malayalam and English. Her articles are widely published in major Indian journals of art like Marg, Art & Deal, TAKE on art and also in the peer reviewed Journal of Illustration Research Intellect, London.
On the creative front, winner of Soviet Land Nehru Award for Painting at the age of thirteen, she traveled to the former USSR and participated in International Young Pioneer Camp for Children at the BlackSea cost of Ukraine in 1989. Started the life of an artist since then and she finds her language at the crossroads of Art, Poetry and History. She is awarded twice by Kerala Lalithakala Akademi for the Best original book on Art. Her book on the print-picture and visual culture of Kerala has won the Kerala Sahitya Academy Endowment Award in 2022.
On the academic front, she has served as the Dean of Fine Arts Faculty (2022-2025), Chairman of Fine Arts Board of Studies of Calicut University and member of various boards in different Universities in Kerala. She has also contributed as an Executive Member of Kerala Lalithakala Akademi during 2015-2017. Since 2005, she is teaching Art History, and currently heading the Dept.of Art History at Government College of Fine Arts, Thrissur.
