Walter DSouza
Bio
Walter D’Souza, born in Mumbai, earned his BFA in Painting as well as his MFA in Printmaking (Graphic Arts) from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara. He broadly defines his work as such: “Man the settler has been taking a toll on this planet. He has key words for it all to smother himself, and he carries on accumulating possessions -a wonderful collection too. Using them, he’s moved on: a most fascinating behaviour.”
Walter has been awarded the National Academy Award for Printmaking by the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in 2004. In 1995, he was nominated to be a member of the Biennial Committee at the 3rd Bharat Bhavan International Biennial of Prints, Bhopal, India. For the 4th edition of the same in 1997, he was made Commissioner. In 1984, he was invited to set up the Printmaking Studio at the Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad of which he was in charge till 1995. Since 1987 he has been teaching as a Visiting Faculty at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad. Walter also taught at NIFT Gandhinagar from 1998 -01.
He has held 8 solo exhibitions in India and participated in a wide range of group exhibitions across Finland, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Canada, USA, and France, where he represented his country. He has also been part of numerous artist workshops and camps in Turkey, Bali, Pakistan, and various part of India. Walter’s architectural commissions are spread over private and public spaces in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Mumbai, Chennai, New Delhi, and Surat, and feature the use of materials like mild steel, stainless steel, concrete, wood, glass, and copper. Besides his site-specific commissions, his work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi, the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, and The British Museum, London.