Chitra - contemporary artist

Happiness... it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort - Vincent Van Gogh

Image above: "Celebration". Please click on image to view 2009 album

My current body of thematic body of paintings compare the mental emotion of happiness as a visual entity that I define as fleeting and ephemeral to short-lived garden blooms and continually evolving seasons. The intense colors and variety of textural materials incorporated into the work interact with any light situation to visually "challenge" or create an experience for the viewer that extends beyond the confines of their two-dimensional surfaces.

Impressions of abstract figuration alluding to human forms and the presence of circles that are prominent features in almost all the pieces signify the ongoing human life-cycle, trying phases followed by happy spells in a positive sense and life and rebirth as influenced by my roots from India. Initial inspiration for my current body of work stemmed from observing Claude Monet's garden in Giverny, France, during an extended visit to Paris and the rest of Europe on different occasions, one such dedicated to studying Painting and French Art History in 1992. 

Drawing and painting since the age of four when I made my foray into art (and music) at a weekend art school for children, I grew up entering competitions and earning prizes while growing up in Kolkata, India. Some of early my recollections include an evening when my watercolor paintings were exhibited at the Birla Academy of Art & Culture Kolkata India  and being awarded a silver trophy by eminent sculptor Chintamani Kar, then principal of the Goverment College of Art and Craft, Kolkata. At age ten, I was declared a winner in a national child art competition organized by Hindustan Unilever Limited, India. Those early shows led to my seeking higher education by earning a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts from Stella Maris College, Chennai India. After moving to the United States in the 1980s I continued my studies and earned a second Bachelors degree in Painting with honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 1993 followed by a M.B.A in Human Resources and Art Museum Administration in 1997 that included a summer internship  at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Broadway, New York in 1996.

 My journey as an artist has evolved over time from a representational background of my childhood and adolescent years to the present phase of abstraction, during which I have developed a significant body of work on the theme of portraying happiness as a visual entity. A significant number of pieces from this series are owned by individual collectors and corporations including educational institutions, around the United States and in Europe.

Also an educator, I teach courses and workshops in Drawing and Painting. Acrylics and Mixed media Painting are predominant mediums of my originals. at the Indianapolis Art Center, Indiana, USA willing to accept invitations for visiting artist lectures within the U.S and abroad, such as an invitation to speak about my work and conduct student tutorials at the Royal Academy of Arts, RA Schools London in 2005, which has since been an enormous encouragement towards sharing my work and experience be it as visiting a artist/ adjunct professor, art jury, by accepting art commissions internationally or teaching study abroad courses in drawing or painting to share my experience with an expanding global family of like-minded people.

I am a current member of Americans for the Arts, the Committee for Diversity Practices of the College Art Association, New York (2007-2010), and have served as a volunteer at the Lilly House and Oldfields Gardens at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, being a member of that museum since 2004.