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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
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Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
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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
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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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
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Artist Statement for Chitra Ramanathan
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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 my smaller works by basically re-creating them as large sized versions. One such was the MGM Mirage that commissioned me to create a pair of signed, site-specific paintings each measuring 4 feet wide and 6 feet high, which have been permanently displayed in the Cafe Bellagio (on the event of the Cafe being remodeled in 2003-2004) located inside the Bellagio Conservatory indoor botanical garden of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. This undertaking brought instant recognition for my work in 2004!
Similarly, a commission that was offered to me by the Washington Township School Foundation to complete a permanent wall mural for children in the front lobby of Crooked Creek Elementary School at Indianapolis, Indiana, USA which was completed in 2008, also expressed that I work in my "uniquely abstract" style.
Since my work is inspired by garden blooms and the outdoors and is colorful, it is suitable for all types of audiences and venues including hospitals or schools. For instance, the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA has permanently displayed two of my large-scale paintings in their facility.
To access videos of these and other installations, please click on the link: http://www.chitraramanathan.com/publicart.htm.
To view images, exhibitions including 2011, magazine reviews, public comments, recent book publications that include my biography and images, academic affiliations and related links, please visit my website at http://www.chitraramanathan.com/
Aside from being a professional artist, I teach courses and workshops in Mixed-media and Acrylic painting in the United States, travelling for lectures as in the case of the Royal Academy of Arts at London-U.K, which invited me to present a talk and about my body of work with image demos, and conduct student tutorials at the Royal Academy Schools in 2005. All of the above have been unbelievable experiences, as unexpected recognition for my work.
Thanks to all who support my work worldwide!
Best wishes,
Chitra
Biography:
Guided by flashes of inspiration, Chitra Ramanathan's images express her ongoing creative journey through a unique body of paintings which has produced delight, inspiration and peace to lovers and owners of her artwork. The artist's acrylics and mixed-media paintings, many of them very large, are uniquely characteristic of intense colors and multiple layers of varied textural materials that interact with light to "challenge the boundaries of their two-dimensional surfaces". They are inspired by short-lived garden blooms and cyclical seasons both of which the artist compares with the continually evolving, ephemeral, fleeting happiness' "formless form": a phrase she has coined to describe her concept. Hints of circles signify the human life-cycle which allude to trying times followed by happy phases, as a continuous cycle of life and rebirth influenced by her roots from India.
Painted on varieties textural materials layered on diverse surfaces be they canvas, plexiglas, linen, paper or anodized aluminum, viewers experience the illusion of the images extending beyond the confines of their otherwise two-dimensional surfaces under any light situation. Her work explores color, form and line that emerge as “formless forms” as she calls her abstracted images that mysteriously peek out of colorful details, while hints at circles that are also an integral part of her work signify the human life cycle. As a whole, her compositions and assemblages present an ongoing dialogue that offers endless possibilities to the viewer imagination. A solo retrospective exhibition of a large selection from her body of work was invited for the Indianapolis Artsgarden, near Monument Circle, Indianapolis in January 2006.
Her completed invitational commissions to date range from:
* A permanent wall painting for children measuring 13.8 feet wide and 4 feet high for the front lobby of Crooked Creek Elementary School in Marion County, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA completed in April 2008
* A site-specific public art project made possible through a grant to Crooked Creek Elementary School in Marion County, Indianapolis in Indiana, USA, a project made possible through a grant to the school by the Metropolitan School Foundation, a public school district in Indianapolis
*A permanent site-specific public art commission for the MGM Mirage in 2004, for which permanent site-specific installation the artist created a pair of large-scale, signed paintings based on her earlier works, housed in the Café Bellagio located inside the Bellagio Conservatory indoor botanical garden of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
* Five large-scale mixed-media paintings commissioned by the Arts Council of Indianapolis, Indiana, USA exhibited at Chase Towers, Monument Circle, Indianapolis from July 2006 to February 2007, an annual project of the Arts Council of Indianapolis supported by the Indianapolis Cultural Development Commission, following a January 2006 solo retrospective exhibition of her body of work at the Indianapolis Arts Garden.
* A pair of paintings, one measuring 58 inches x 62 inches, and the other measuring 38 inches x 48 inches, ermanently displayed in the conference area of the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Champaign, Illinois, USA, gifted to the college in 1996.
Future/ongoing interests:
*Art direction, set creation/set design/set construction projects to design, build, construct and paint custom props, creating murals.
*Consult and develop themes for churches, casinos, schools, hospitals or corporate projects.
*Teach holiday courses in Drawing and Painting mediums
Accepted Visiting Artist Lectures:
Special invitation from Maurice Cockrill RA, Keeper and Head of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, U.K to for an image and lecture presentation of Chitra Ramanathan's body of work, and conduct Student Tutorials by the artist at the RA Schools in 2005
Visiting artist slide lecture for students of Painting in the Department of Art at Kansas State Manhattan, Kansas in 2002
2011 exhibitions:
Women's Day International Mail Art Exhibition 2011, Ahmedabad India - March 7-10, 2011
Vero Beach Art Club's Art by the Sea, Jan. 15 – 17, 2011 at the Vero Beach Museum of Art, Florida, USA
Vero Beach Museum of Art Museum, Florida, USA: Art School Faculty Exhibition, January 15 – February 13, 2011
2010 exhibitions:
Solo exhibition, GALLERY SEVEN, Pike Performing Arts Center, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. June 4 - July 13, 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.
Group exhibitions: Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Cambridgeshire, England
2009 exhibtions:
Bi-annual faculty exhibition, Indianapolis Art Center Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. August 28 - October 4, 2009
Invitational exhibition, The Brevard Art Museum of Arts and Sciences. Melbourne, Florida, USA. May 15 - July 12, 2009
"A Postcard is Worth 1000 Words Exhibition", APW Gallery Long Island City, New York, USA. June 5 - June 29, 2009
Book reviews:
Ramanathan, Chitra, p.118, International Contemporary Artists vol 1 (Paperback) : Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: International Contemporary Artists vol IThis review is from: International Contemporary Artists vol I http://www.amazon.com/International-Contemporary-Artists-vol.../9609322980 -
Awards (Partial list only):
1994 and 1995 Liquitex Product Grant from Binney & Smith, makers of Crayola Crayon for "Outstanding achievement in the Painting discipline.
Personal Information:
About Chitra Ramanathan:
Drawing and painting from a very early age, painter, educator and muralist Chitra Ramanathan made her foray into art at a weekend art school for children in Kolkata, India when she was four years old. She entered in competitions through several of which she earned prizes throughout her growing years.
The early successes led to her seeking higher education by earning a Bache...lors degree in Fine Arts from Stella Maris College, Chennai India. After moving to the United States in the 1980s, she continued her education in art 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 combined with a summer internship at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Broadway, New York in 1996. During her undergraduate years, she allotted time to study painting and art History in Paris, France, with extended time spent at Claude Monet's garden in Giverny, France and other parts of Europe that influenced her later work.
A number of her originals from this series are owned by individual collectors and corporations including educational institutions, around the United States and in Europe.
The artist returned to France in 2010, accepting an invitation from Artistay.org to complete a self-directed artist residency at Marnay-sur Seine, completing her month long work in April 2010 by returning to Giverny.
Also an educator, Chitra Ramanathan has taught courses and workshops Acrylics and Mixed media Painting, the predominant mediums of her originals at the Indianapolis Art Center, Indiana, USA and currently at the Art School of the Vero Beach Museum of Art, Florida, USA, She accepts freelance projects including visiting artist lectures within the U.S and abroad, public art commissions, teaching study-abroad painting courses, art jury invitations, corporate art loans, or requests for donations to support causes.
For her extensive body of thematic paintings, academic affiliations, exhibitions, critic and public reviews, and other links, please log on to: http://www.chitraramanathan.com/
Education:
Bachelors degree in Fine Arts from Stella Maris College, Chennai India
Bachelors degree in Painting with honors, the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA in 1993
Masters in Business Administration at the College of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA in 1997
She is a current member of Americans for the Arts, the Vero Beach Art Club, Florida, USA, S1 Artspace, Sheffield and Matt Robert Arts, London, United Kingdom. She has served in the Committee for Diversity Practices from 2007-2010 and the Services to Artists Committee from 2003-2006 as member of the College Art Association, New York .See More
Personal Interests
Photography, sculpture, printmaking, gardening, karoake singing, golf, travel, dance, music, films, video. Making art, planting gardens, traveling with my best traveling companion, visiting with friends, reading lots of books on different subjects, and just enjoying every moment of every day!
Professional interests and details:
* Commissions accepted from corporations or educational institutions to create custom work on any theme and size. (Please view images of paintings created for the MGM Mirage, Las Vegas, educational institutions such as the University of Illinois College of Medicine, mural for Crooked Creek Elementary School on this site as examples)
* Coordinating or assistance in art direction, set creation/set design/set construction/set decoration and or/painting projects to design, build, construct and paint custom props, create murals to consult and develop themes for churches, casinos, schools, hospitals or corporate projects.
* Teaching holiday courses in Drawing and Painting mediumsSee
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