Dhruva Mistry was born in Kanjari in Gujarat in 1957. He studied sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda. He went on to gain an MA at Baroda and then went to Britain on a British Council scholarship to take an MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art. From the years 1983 to 1996 he pursued his career as a sculptor in Britain with residencies at Kettles Yard Gallery, Cambridge and fellowships at Churchill College and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He returned to Vadodara in the year 1997 and was appointed Professor, Head of Sculpture and Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Baroda.

Mistry had shaped himself as an artist while experiencing the West during a period in which British art was changing. Rich imagery and narrative content of Indian art and the highly developed skills of a dedicated sculptor characterize the sculptures of Dhruva. All his work is not narrative. In some pieces he explores the art making process thereby leading to the inevitable intellectual debate that ensues between artist and viewer, whether implied or expressed. His works vary in style and scale- from small bronze sculptures to monumental works for public spaces which are made of sand, cement, stone and stainless steel. Dhruva Mistry`s works ranges from huge public commissions to maquettes and wall reliefs. They have influences from Hinduism, Buddhism and West - Egyptian and Cycladic art and European traditions of figurative sculpture. His works are conceptual.

Mistry`s work reflects individual curiosity and interest. He explored art in a variety of media like drawing, painting, etching, dry point, digital works, photography, and sculpture in various materials. Mistry works with scale and quality of forms, concepts and materials as a sculptor. His works reveal intrinsic appeal and perceptual beauty of the form. Mistry is inspired from civilizations and cultures like Indian, Chinese, Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, European Mayan, Oceanic, African, tribal, folk, old, new and modern.

He received many awards in this thirteen-year period, including the Third Rodin Grand Prize Exhibition, Japan (1990); the Jack Goldhill award (1991); the Humanities Prize medal award at `Fukuoka Annual VII`, Fukuoka, Japan (1994); the Design Presidents award for the Victoria Square Sculptures, the Landscape Institute and Marsh Fountain of the Year award for Victoria Square, Birmingham (1995). He was elected Royal Academician in 1991 and made Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1993. In 2001, he was awarded an Honorary CBE.

Mistry has created symbolic works with a religious background that evoke the Indian tradition. His approach represents a quest for subconscious archetypes which are shared by different ethnic groups. The special qualities that distinguish Mistry`s work - a combination of refined mysteriousness, vulgar popular taste, and traditional sensuality. His method of synthesizing allusions to previous art work is relevant today amid doubts about the concept of originality. Mistry`s effort to achieve a universal language as a mode of artistic expression while deeply probing his own ethnicity represents an extremely timely global subject.

His native tradition is reflected in his sculptural process, in the themes he explores, in certain formal characteristics. However his work reflects a deep understanding and knowledge of the Western tradition of art. Theme of duality and the sense of ambivalence and ambiguity in meaning are the strength of Mistry`s art. The richness of Mistry`s imagery lies in his capacity to re-examine; re-interpret and re- present the most ancient of symbols. Dhruva Mistry is a figurative artist who views form as abstract. One can identify the individual geometric forms in his sculptures. His themes are ancient and universal though he has the ability to communicate them in a contemporary manner. Mistry succeeds in exploring his concerns as an artist while creating images that are accessible to us all.

Solo Exhibitions of Dhruva Mistry are: