Member since Saturday 13th Jun, 2015
Established visual artist, educator and muralist Chitra Ramanathan’s widely collected paintings have been acquired and collected, and commissioned as permanent and temporary site-specific public art installations in the United States.
Ramanathan's unique body of paintings have created delight, inspiration and peace to lovers and owners of her artwork, inspired by short-lived garden blooms and cyclical seasons both of which the artist compares with what she perceives as "continually evolving, fleeting happiness".
The artist's acrylics and mixed media paintings that are predominantly large-scale, are uniquely characteristic of intense colors and multiple layers of varied textural materials that interact with light. They have been described as “tactile works that resonate with a quiet harmony” by Manhattan Arts, New York, where several galleries exhibited her work on Broadway, Soho gallery district, with solo and group exhibitions since 1995, following a solo exhibition in Chicago in 1994.
Painted 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 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 present an ongoing dialogue that offers endless possibilities to the viewer imagination.
Beginnings:
Drawing and painting from a very early age, 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 national and local art competitions throughout her growing years, several of which earning her trophies as prizes with recognition as a child artist of merit. One such was a citation and prize she received at the age of ten, with her entry chosen in a national competition hosted by Hindustan Lever. When she was 11 years old, her work was selected for exhibition at the Birla Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkatta, awarded with a silver trophy by eminent sculptor Chintamini Kar.
The early successes led to her 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, 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 French 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.
The artist returned to France in 2010, accepting an invitation from Artistay.org affiliated to the UNESCO, for a self-directed artist residency at Camac Centre D’Art at Marnay-sur Seine near Paris, completing her month -long work in April 2010 by returning to Giverny.
An invitational solo retrospective solo exhibition of her work took place at the Indianapolis Arts Garden, downtown Indianapolis, USA in 2006, closely following a Visitor Artist tour to the Royal Academy of Arts, London, England to which institution RA Keeper and Head Maurice Cockrill invited the artist for a presentation and talk on her thematic work as well as conduct critiques at the RA Schools in 2005.
Commissions:
* Permanent wall mural for children measuring 13.8 feet wide, 4 feet located front lobby of Crooked Creek Elementary School in Marion County, Indianapolis, Indiana - site-specific public art project made possible through a grant to the school in 2008
* Five large-scale mixed-media paintings commissioned by the Arts Council of Indianapolis displayed at Chase Towers, Monument Circle, downtown Indianapolis from 2006 to 2007 as part of an annual project of the Arts Council of Indianapolis supported by the Indianapolis Cultural Development Commission to promote the city of Indianapolis as a cultural destination
*Permanent site-specific installation of a pair of 4 feet x 6 feet, signed paintings based on earlier works, housed inside the Bellagio Conservatory indoor botanical garden of the Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada in 2004, a commission by MGM Mirage, Las Vegas
* Pair of paintings measuring 58 in. x 62 in, and 38 in. x 48 in. on permanent display in the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Champaign, Illinois since 1996.
Ramanathan is a current member of Americans for the Arts, as well as the Matt Robert Arts, London and S1 Artspace, Sheffield, United Kingdom. She served in the Commitee for DIversity Practices and the Services for Artists Committee of the College Art Association, New York.
She teaches classes in various painting mediums at the Art School of the Vero Beach Museum of Art, Florida, USA.
