Born in Melbourne, Australia, Swathi Madike is a South Asian Artist who specialises in portraiture, working on the unceded land of the Wurrundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation.
Swathi’s creativity has taken on different forms throughout her life. She holds an honours in Industrial Design and worked as a service designer before changing her direction to the visual arts.
She first fell in love with the idea of painting in Mumbai, India when her housemate, an art curator at a prestigious gallery took her to a community art night. Here began her journey in art, that led her to join a classical painting course in Italy over the summer of 2016. Following this, she was successful in receiving scholarships, leading to further training in Sydney and Argentonnay (France).
Exclusively working in oil paint, Swathi follows traditional techniques but uses them to depict people in a contemporary style.
In recent years, her deep rooted passion has resulted in awards such as the Norma Bull Portrait Prize and portrait commissions. Swathi has also taught drawing at RMIT and currently teaches painting at various institutions including the Victorian Artists Society in East Melbourne.
Swathi Madike is driven by a passion to increase representation of people of colour, painted by people of colour in the field of classical realism.
CV
Awards
2021, Norma Bull Scholarship for Portraiture
2021, Finalist AME Bale Travelling Scholarship
2020, Sir William Dobel Scholar, Full Time Scholarship at the Julian Ashton Art School
Exhibitions
2022, AME Bale Finalist Exhibition, Glen Eira City Council
2021, AME Bale Finalist Exhibition, Glen Eira City Council
2021, Art Exhibition and Acquisition Program at Hall & Wilcox, Sydney head office
2021, Red Dot Revolt, Giant Dwarf Theatre
Teaching
2023 - Current, Camberwell Community Centre, Camberwell
2022 - Current, Victorian Artists Society, East Melbourne
2022 - Current, Art Academica, Bentleigh East
2022 - 2023, Wyreena Community Centre, Croydon
Education
2022, Summer Intensive Studio Escalier, Argentonnay, France
2021 - 2022, Private Tuition with Nicolas Chen, Melbourne
2019 - 2020, Classical Drawing and Painting, Julian Ashton Art School, Sydney
2017, Six Week Summer Course, Florence Academy of Art, Florence