Chitra Ramanathan

All images of paintings featured anywhere on this website are Copyright © Chitra Ramanathan 2010, and cannot be reproduced anywhere without prior written permission.

Biography from website: http://www.chitraramanathan.com

Unique features:

* Artist Chitra Ramanathan's extensive body of paintings portraying happiness as a visual entity with a 'formless form', created through intense colors and varieties of found texture materials

* The artist's mixed-media paintings on and behind Plexiglas and anodized aluminum
* Predominantly large-scale paintings

Drawing and painting since the age of four when Chitra Ramanathan made her foray into art and music at a weekend art school for children in Kolkata, India, she was entered in competitions through several of which she earned prizes throughout her growing years. When she was ten years old, she was declared a winner in a national child art competition organized by Hindustan Unilever Limited, India. Some of her early recollections include her watercolor paintings being selected for exhibition at the Birla Academy of Art & Culture Kolkata India at the age of eleven and being awarded a silver trophy by eminent sculptor Chintamani Kar at the venue.

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 that included a summer internship at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Broadway, New York in 1996.

Chitra Ramanathan's curent body of mixed-media paintings are characterized by intense colours and multiple layers of textures that interact with light to 'challenge the boundaries of their two-dimensional surfaces', 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, trying times followed by happy phases and of life and rebirth influenced by her roots from India. Her paintings on varied surfaces have been described as 'tactile works that resonate with a quiet harmony' by Manhattan Arts International magazine, New York. 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.
Her work has attracted visiting artist lectures to institutions within the U.S and abroad, including a 2005 invitation from Professor Dr. Maurice Cockrill to London's Royal Academy of Arts for a visual presentation of her body of work and conducting student tutorials at the Royal Academy Schools.

Chitra earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting with Honours in 1993 from the College of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, during which period she also 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. She completed a M.B.A from the same university in 1997. The artist returned to France in April 2010, accepting a invitation to complete a self-directed artist residency at Marnay-sur Seine, completing her month long work in April 2010 with a trip back 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, while accepting freelance projects including visiting artist lectures within the U.S and abroad, public art commissions, teaching study-abroad painting courses, invitations art jury requests, corporate art licensing, or donations. (Please visit other links within this website to view details of completed projects).

She is a current member of Americans for the Arts, served in the Committee for Diversity Practices of the College Art Association, New York from 2007-2010, and as a past volunteer at the Lilly House and Oldfields Gardens of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, being a member of the IMA since 2004.

Books and journal publications:

Forthcoming*:

Biography/image:

* International Contemporary Artists Vol.1

Publisher: In. Co. Artists Books

US: 9 Columbus Avenue, NYC, NY 10024, US

EU: Athens Towers, 2-4 Messogion Av. Athens 115 27, GR Release Date: October 24, 2010

Lemonidou Eve (Author), Eve Lemonidou (Editor), Olga Antoniadou (Editor)

Price: $117.00

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.


* Biography and artwork of Chitra Ramanathan, “The Artists Bluebook 2004, Directory of American Artists from the 16th Century to August 2004'- by Lonnie Pierson Dunbier, Editor. From www.askART.com 'Books on this artist'

Publications:

* Abstract, Publication of the College Art Association 'World Art: A Panhuman Narrative for Egalitarian Teaching' Co Chair, Art History Session: College Art Association 96th Annual Conference, Dallas-Fort Worth: Committee on Diversity Practices. Topic Presentation: 'World Art: A Panhuman Narrative for Egalitarian Teaching', 96th Annual Conference 2008

* Biography, Marquis Publications Who’s Who in America 2008, 62nd Edition

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