|
|
Artist Statement:
Chitra Ramanathan, in her own
words:
Through my body of work I
portray the subject of
happiness as a visual
interpretation. To achieve
this goal, I employ intense,
vibrant colors combining them
with intricate textural
materials, arriving at
predominantly large collages
that convey the universal
mental emotion. Since
happiness has no recognizable
form, I refer to the hint of
figures and circular
ima...gery as 'formless
forms", a phrase I have coined
to describe the abstract
imagery. As happiness is a
lifelong pursuit and yet could
be elusive as an ongoing goal
in the human life cycle, I
refer to the feeling as
fleeting and temporary,
comparing the emotion to
continually evolving ephemeral
garden blooms and cyclical
seasons in nature, as both are
transient, changing and
evolving.
Though my current body of work
is conceptual with mixed-media
collage and acrylics as prime
mediums, I am equally
comfortable with portrait and
landscape painting and drawing
or painting with pencil,
charcoal or oil since I have
experimented with different
mediums since early childhood.
Serendipity intervening
however, some large public art
commissions I have completed
in recent years have been
requested after viewing my
conceptual work with
organizations requesting that
I replicate ...
Further Information
| |
Artist Exhibitions:
Selected Exhibitions:
2010
SPOTLIGHT Artists Gallery
Opening Night Reception
Spotlight Art @ Clowes:
Invitational Exhibition: "One
Night, One Stage, One Reason"
"to raise money for the
Indiana AIDS Fund and HIV/AIDS
education and prevention".
Venue: Clowes Memorial Hall of
Butler University,
Indianapolis, Indiana USA.
April 12 – May 24, 2010.
Solo ...
Further Information
|
|
Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
|
|
Artist Reviews:
MAGAZINE REVIEWS & ARTICLES *
Indicates articles)
• * Profile: “Rendezvous
Artist”, Profile Article,
Indianapolis Star
Newspaper’s Fishers>Geist
Magazine, July/August 2007
• * ”Paintings Give Form
to the Ephemeral”,
interview/profile,
Indianapolis Business Journal,
Women in Business Section,
April 9-15, 2007
• * Indianapolis Monthly
Home Magazine, Profile:
“Secret Success”, July
2006
• CAA News, ...
Further Information
|
|
Collections:
Coming Soon!
|
|
Commissions:
Artist Residency:
Invitational artist residency
at Champagne Ardenne, France,
April 2010. Grant by Camac -
Centre D'Art - Marnay Art
Centre, France and
Transcultural International
Exchange in the Arts
March-April 2008: Washington
Township School Foundation
grant commission to create
permanent wall mural painting
for children in the front
lobby of ...
Further Information
|
|
|
Chitra Ramanathan Biography:
| Biographical information for Chitra Ramanathan can be found below. The artist may choose what information to display. Sometimes the artist chooses not to display personal information to the general public. |
|
Age
|
0
|
| |
| Gender |
not provided
|
| |
| Status |
not provided
|
| |
| Children |
99
|
| |
| Religion |
not provided |
| |
| Education |
Graduate Degree |
| |
| Hobbies / Interests |
World travel for accepting visiting artist lectures, residencies, public art commissions |
| |
| Favorite Artistic Medium |
Mixed Media
|
| |
| Favorite Arthistory Movement |
Contemporary Art - (Now)
|
| |
| Favorite Visual Artist |
Claude Monet, Vasilly Kandinsky, Cezanne
|
| |
| Favorite Work of Art |
not provided
|
| |
| Biggest Artistic Inspiration |
Travel to Europe especially extended visits to Paris, France and Monet's garden in Giverny, France that has influenced my current body of mixed-media paintings. |
| |
| Why Did You Become An Artist |
Enrolled in an arts school for children at the age of four, I made an early entry into fine arts, which led to my ongoing interest and success in art competitions throughout my growing years. |
| |
| Your Personal Biography |
web site: http://www.chitraramanathan.com
Biography:
Born in Thiruvananthapuram, India, Chitra Ramanathan is a contemporary Indian American visual artist and educator. She produces predominantly large scale abstract conceptual mixed-media paintings, drawings, prints, site-specific installation works.
During the mid-1990s Chitra began developing what emerged as a thematic body of paintings comparing the mental emotion of happiness as a visual entity defined as fleeting and ephemeral, to short-lived garden books and continually evolving seasonal changes. Her rendition of intense colors and variety of textural materials explored on diverse surfaces such as canvas, Plexiglas, paper or anodized aluminum, when viewed under any light situation visually 'challenge or 'extend' out beyond the confines of their otherwise two-dimensional surfaces. They explore color, line, 'formless forms' as she calls her abstracted figures that mysteriously peek out of colorful details, while hints at circular forms signify the human life cycle influenced by her roots from India, They culminate in compositions and assemblages to form an ongoing dialogue.
Her work ranges from site-specific installations that comprise of murals such as a permanent wall mural measuring 13.8 feet wide and 4 feet high for the front lobby of Crooked Creek Elementary School, Marion County, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA completed in April 2008, site-specific public art project made possible through a grant to the school by the Metropolitan School Foundation, a public school district in Indianapolis, works derived from her own originals such a pair of large paintings for the MGM Mirage permanently housed inside the Bellagio Conservatory indoor Botanical Gardens, Las Vegas since 2004 (photo above) and five large-scale mixed-media paintings commissioned by the Arts Council of Indianapolis at Chase Towers, Monument Circle Indianapolis, USA in 2006-2007, an annual project supported by the Indianapolis Cultural Development Commission and a 2006 solo retrospective exhibition of her body of work on the theme at the Indianapolis Artsgarden, Circle Center, Indianapolis.
Several of her colorful mixed media paintings are owned by individual and corporate collectors around the United States and in Europe including educational institutions such as the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA. Charity auctions for offer of her work include the Madame C.J. Walker Theatre Center, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA and a custom-created painting based on the 1979 Hollywood movie ''Breaking Away' for the Indianapolis International Film Festival, 2008/2009. Although primarily a painter, related media such as prints and sculptural adaptations on her theme have been exhibited in art galleries in SoHo, Broadway Manhattan, New York, solo exhibition at the ARC Gallery & Educational Foundation at Chicago,
Academically, Chitra's work has attracted visiting artist lectures to educational institutions in the US and abroad, such an invitation from Professor Dr. Maurice Cockrill, present Keeper and Head of the Royal Academy of Arts/Royal Academy Schools, London, England in 2005.
Chitra earned her second Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting with Honors in 1993 during which period she also allotted time to study Painting and Art History in Paris, France, with extended visits to Giverny, France that influenced her later work. Earlier, she received a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts from Stella Maris College, Chennai, India.
She lives and works in the United States, while accepting travels worldwide for invitational visiting artist lectures, adjunct professor teaching positions, collaborative projects, exhibition jury requests, public art commissions, and freelance projects. |
| |
|
contact artist
