Style :
In the last three to four years, he has engaged with the concept of an indelible signature left by the ooze of the urban theatre. Human beings, who have always occupied Chandra, who have mostly been figures of silent resilience on his canvas, now play their at-times proactive, at times unwitting role in the muddied whirl of progress-regress, marriages of convenience and trend-grabbing. His medium has been oil and acrylic on canvas. He has also used iron sheets and bars.
The colors in Bhattacharjee’s paintings are at once, subdued and vibrant. Warm pinks, full-bodied blues, interspersed with blank areas, soothe the senses. He uses the technique of crosshatching (a method used more often in pencil drawings), in black, over the color; this adds depth to his colors. Bhattacharjee’s paintings tell a story, but it is a story without a beginning or an end and it flows seamlessly from the artist onto the surface of the canvas. The world of Bhattacharjee’s creation is without boundaries; where humans, animals and surreal creatures coexist in harmony.
About the Artist and his work :
Born : 1961 in Bardhaman, West Bengal.
Education : He received a diploma with a first class from the Indian College of Art and Draughtsmanship in 1986. He was awarded a gold medal by Rabindra Bharati University in 1986 for excellence in fine arts and honoured with the Taj Gaurav recently.
Solo Shows :
His most recent solo show was in Londons The Gallery on Cork Street in July 2007. He has held 14 solos with Galerie 88, Gallery Threshold, Palette Art Gallery, Sumukha Art Gallery and Art Heritage, among others. His next solo exposition will be with Galerie 88 in Kolkata in Novermber, 2008. His works have part of auctions held by Emami Chisel, Bonhams, Christies, Apparaoart, Triveda and Saffronart. His work has twice traveled to Art Singapore.
Workshops :
He has been a part of many art workshops and group expositions, a few being Gaze Within, Gaze Without, Gandhara Art Gallery, Kolkata; Indian art show with Gallery Muller & Plate, Munich; Adana Biennale, Turkey; Imprints, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo; Diverse Idioms, Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre; Power of Peace, Bali, The United Nations; XI Indian Triennale India; Ways of Seeing, Art Alive, Delhi; Indian Contemporaray Art, Sumukha-Quayside Gallery, London; Nude Studies, The Guild.
