Dr. Rohini Iyengar Vadapalli is an art historian and an academician. Apart from research and teaching, she engages in curatorial practice. She obtained her PhD in art history from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India. She has significant experience in teaching art history courses at several universities and colleges in India and the U.S. She has also presented her research at various national and international conferences.
Her primary research focuses on regional aesthetics and the various factors affecting the nuances of regional artistic identities. A secondary area of interest is the premodern visual traditions of India. Her publications include exhibition catalogues, magazines, peer-reviewed essays in art journals, and edited textbooks on art and art history.
Dr. Vadapalli’s Fulbright-Nehru project is tracing the development of twenty-first-century visual arts in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in India as well as New Jersey and New York in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. by drawing some compelling parallels between the living folk traditions of both the regions. The study is comparing and contrasting these two regions based on the economic-technological and politico-religious aspects affecting the arts. Her research is also highlighting the importance of AI in various art spheres. The project aims to enable the introduction of new courses on regional contemporary art and curatorial studies in New Jersey and New York, as well as courses on the “histories of regional modern Indian art” in academic institutions. It also holds interdisciplinary relevance for furthering scholarship on American regionalism studies. Further, it would provide database for art historians to conduct research both in the U.S. and India. Most significantly, this project is expected to contribute immensely to the field of art history.