Shreyasi Chatterjee
Shreyasi Chatterjee’s art can’t be labelled as landscape per se. But Nature almost always is an unstated, persuasive presence, a benign backdrop to the curious trivia of human life that is assembled as chance glimpses, neither linked into a single, coherent narrative, nor signifying connotations beyond the apparent. It’s like passing scenes from a train window, throwing up disconnected little stimuli for the sensitive, distanced observer. It is this accidental coming together of Nature and people absorbed in their own activity, at a frozen moment of fluid transience that imbues the frames with a colloquial poetry of the everyday. And that suggests a conceit of life itself as a scattered pageant that has no grand design beyond the continuous trickle of contingent moments that are like cross-talk with diverse references. That’s what mixes her expansive romanticism with both reflective depth and a wry levity.
Since needle replaces brush and thread plays paint for Chatterjee, an exquisite minuteness, the miniaturist’s detailing of imagery, is summoned, with an immersive focus on each, precise stitch. On the other hand, because stitches can’t have the supple flow of ink or brush lines, there’s a spry, staccato rhythm to the images, as though they were sketched with short, quick, angular strokes. That gives them a spark of impromptu playfulness, an inspired quaintness of vision that’s aloof and amused at the same time. Space is employed as a captivating counterpoint of notional limitless reaches — now shallow, now receding — to the bright clusters of motifs with scraps of appliquéd cloth and stitches: trees and temples, people and pathways, water bodies and houses, and so forth. The current suite also includes works that signal an exciting tangent in Chatterjee’s approach. The first example to mention is Boxes Little Boxes. It seems to be a jesting squint at the closely packed “boxes” that urban sites have become. Its semi- geometric arrangement comprises mostly little rectangular pieces of cloth on a flat space, as though the city were hung up vertically like a colourful façade. The pattern of boxes, interspersed with fetching details like domes and minarets, trees and birds, pulsates with a new, edgy, quite offbeat brio. Another departure that delights one is Forgotten Lores, a rollicking flight of fancy that’s partly Miroesque wonder and partly sublime nonsense that brings to mind Sukumar Ray’s bizarre creatures in Abol Tabol. Droll, biomorphic shapes — each infused with a self-absorbed dynamism, as it were — seem to have been scattered about in a charmed space without the least deference to spatial logic. Two more works are similarly inspired by childlike play. In one, pieces of cloth folded and stitched into colourful little packets suggest the tantalizing lure of surprise gifts. The other, with its little bows and buttons, refers to dressing up and outings, evoking a festive spirit.
No less a surprise is her series of drawings, made with a light, breezy pen. Spare lines conjure a mountain cloaked with fleeting details in one. Another is infectiously sprightly, with quick, skipping lines and dots in colour echoing the jaunty rhythm of her stitches. But when biological forms mutate into writhing, balletic, biomorphic shapes, and representational references are lost in a network of nervy lines, flecks and a mesh of dots, the Metamorphosis is charged with an elusive effervescence that takes it soaring, free of gravity.
Rita Datta,
Art Critic,
Kolkata, June 2020
Click images for enlargement
Title: The Pink Path
Medium: Applique, stitches and acrylic paint on canvas
Size: 31cm x 26cm Year: 2019
Title: In Clusters
Medium: Acrylic, stitching and applique
Size: 101.7cm x 89cm Year: 2019
Title: Rolling Hills, Pathway and Owl
Medium: Acrylic, applique, stitching
Size: 91.5cm x 75.5cm Year: 2019
Title: Purple Landscape
Medium: Applique, embroidery and acrylic paint on canvas
Size: 30.5cm x 25.5cm Year: 2019
Title: Unforgettable Lores-II
Medium: Applique, embroidery on canvas
Size: 108cm x 90cm Year: 2020
Title: The Divide
Medium: Acrylic, stitches, applique, Turkish fabric & pen on canvas
Size: 206cmx 148.5cm Year: 2008
Title: Metamorphosis
Medium: Micro tip pen on paper
Size: 30cm x 30cm Year: 2020
Title: Untitled
Medium: Water colour and micro tip pen on paper
Size: 30.5cm x 40.5cm Year: 2020
Title: Untitled
Medium: Micro tip pen on paper
Size: 40.5cm x 30.5cm Year: 2020
Title: Untitled
Medium: Water colour and micro tip pen on paper
Size: 30.5cm x 40.5cm Year: 2020
Title: Boxes little boxes
Medium: Embroidery, acrylic paint and applique on canvas
Size: 30.5cm x 38cm Year: 2019
Title: This or That
Medium: Acrylic, thread embroidery on canvas
Size: 119.5cm x 119.5cm 47.05” x 47.05” Year: 2017
Title: Birthday Present
Medium: Applique, stitches, plastic buttons and ribbons on canvas
Size: 26cm x 31cm Year: 2019
Title: All Wrapped Up
Medium: Embroidery, applique and run stitches
Size: 31cm x 38cm Year: 2019
Title: Pink Dot
Medium: Micro tip pen with coloured ink on paper
Size: 40.5cm x 30.5cm Year: 2020
Title: Unforgettable Lores – I
Medium: Applique, embroidery on canvas
Size: 61cm x 45cm Year: 2020
Title: Buzz
Medium: Applique, embroidery on canvas
Size: 31cm x 38cm Year: 2019v
Born: 1960
Education
1992: Ph.D. (Portraiture in Indian Style of Painting), Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan
1985: M. Fine (History of Art), Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan
1983: B. Fine (History of Art), Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan
Solo Exhibitions
2009: Through the Eye of a Needle – recent works by Shreyasi Chatterjee, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
Participations
2019:
Remembering Dinakar Kowshik, Birla Academy of Art and Culture,Kolkata
2018:
RBU Teacher’s Show, Lalit Kala Regional Centre, Lucknow
2017:
Gems Studio, collateral project during CIMA Awards – The Kolkata Art Festival,
Gem Cinema, Kolkata, organised by CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
RBU Teacher’s Show, ICCR, Kolkata
2016:
Experiments: Five postmodern expressions from Bengal, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata;
Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, organised by CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
RBU Teacher’s Show, ICCR, Kolkata
2015:
RBU Teacher’s Show, Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata
2014-15:
Drawings and In Between, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
2014:
Summer Show 2014, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
RBU Teacher’s Show, Jawahar Kalakendra, Jaipur
2013-14:
Transition – 20th Anniversary Exhibition, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
2013:
Kolkata Cross-Currents, STRARTA Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, London
Summer Show 2013, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
2012:
Adbhutam – rasa in Indian art, Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, organized by CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
The Indians are Coming, Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim, Norway; organised by Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
2011:
Adbhutam – rasa in Indian art, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
Yeh Image Mahan – India meets Bharat, Rabindra Bhawan, Lalit Kala Akademi,
New Delhi, organized by CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
Summer Show 2011, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
2010:
Symbols & Metaphors, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
Yeh Image Mahaan – India meets Bharat, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
RBU Teacher’s Annual Show, Dhaka Art Centre, Dhaka
2009:
In Search of a Context, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
2008:
Freedom – sixty years after Indian Independence, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
Freedom – sixty years after Indian Independence, organized by CIMA Gallery, Kolkata at The Museum Gallery, Mumbai
Summer Show, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
2007:
Shifting Paradigms, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, organized by CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
2006:
New Works, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
Summer Show, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
2005:
Special Works, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
RBU Teacher’s Annual Exhibition, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
2004:
Concepts & Ideas 2004, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata
RBU Teacher’s Annual Exhibition, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
2003:
RBU Teacher’s Annual Exhibition, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
2002:
RBU Teacher’s Annual Exhibition, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
2001:
RBU Teacher’s Annual Exhibition, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
2000:
Millennium Show, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
RBU Teacher’s Annual Exhibition, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
1999:
RBU Teacher’s Annual Exhibition, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
1998:
RBU Teacher’s Annual Exhibition, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
1987:
Group Show, Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta
Acheivements:
2001: Commonwealth Fellowship Award, and was placed at Goldsmiths College, University of London from October,2001 to March, 2002
1987: U.G.C. Fellowship ‘Special Assistance Scheme for the Development of Visual Arts