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Chitra Ramanathan
Fortville, IN
(317) 336-9877

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Chitra Ramanathan

Happiness as a Visual Entity

I am a contemporary conceptual artist with a body of work, exhibition record/auction. Mine is a career that immediately followed college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from where I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting with Honors in 1993. A solo exhibition of my work got hosted by Chicago's ARC Gallery/Educational Foundation in early 1994. This exhibition of one month's duration was closely followed by shows at different venues on Broadway's SoHo art gallery district in New York from 1995 to 1999, that earned me many a good critic review.

Since then, I have become known for an extensive body of mixed-media series of paintings portraying a mental emotion: happiness, as a visual entity through contrasting, intense colors and textures that include materials such as gold leaf, a variety of papers, and found materials such as sand and natural fibers that incorporate light on surfaces such as canvas, ...        > Read moreanodized aluminum, linen and Plexiglas. When combined with light at different angles, they create the illusion of "extending" the boundaries of their two-dimensional surfaces. I am inspired by short-lived garden blooms and constantly evolving seasons in nature, characteristics I relate to the ephemeral, fleeting and enticingly beautiful happiness' "formless form", a phrase I invented for myself to describe my concept and that is now used by biographers of my career.

The suggestion of abstracted figuration and/or circular shapes almost always present in my work signify the human life-cycle: trying phases followed by happy periods in a positive sense, and of life and rebirth as influenced by roots from India.

Media comments and reviews:

The Indianapolis Business Journal, April 9-14, 2007, Section: Women in Business: "Creative Pursuit of Happiness: Paintings Give Form to the Ephemeral" by Della Pacheco- "Says a recent collector of Chitra's painting who is an art connoisseur and a former staffer of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, "I first met Chitra when I took her classes at the Indianapolis Art Center. I wanted a painting by Chitra because I like the feeling her abstract work evokes. I like the way her paintings make me feel and think; and I like how she communicates so much with a subtle use of color or a tiny brush stroke.....There is so much in our world today that can be considered "negative", that I like art around me that offers hope and that reaches for joy. For me, her paintings do that".

From LinkedIn: "Chitra is a wonderful teacher who helps each individual student. As an artist, she is inspiring. Her work is in great collections, including the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I proudly own one of her works. Anyone would be proud to add one of her works to a collection." Service Category: Artist/ Teacher Year first hired: 2004 (hired more than once)Top Qualities: Expert, High Integrity, Creative"--Alice Irvan, President, AirVanConsulting LLC, Indianapolis

"E/Motions" Exhibition at Agora Gallery, Broadyway, New York: Chitra Ramanathan employs paint, anodized aluminum, and Plexiglas to create tactile works that resonate with a quiet harmony. Originally from India, her work reflects that spiritual culture". -Reviews & Previews by Gordon Dane, Manhattan Arts, New York, Fall 1995

"Chitra's paintings exemplify her love of nature as well as the subjectivity of each individual's unique pursuit of happiness. Her painting procedure often entails making mental notes of a scene in nature, including the lighting, colors, and textures. She then uses these impressions in her studio to replicate the subject matter in an abstracted form, using rich physical textures, intense colors, and varied media". Interview with Chitra Ramanathan, University of Illinois School of Art and Design Alumni Foundation

Saatchi Gallery: Her work has been acquired by individual as well as corporate collectors including educational institutions around the United States and in Europe. During an interview with artist Chitra Ramanathan by the Indianapolis Star newspaper's Fishers|Geist Magazine for the June-July 2007 issue, the artist reflected, "I feel fortunate that my work has got accepted so favorably-people who come across my paintings on various web sites have been writing to me, and many of them have become collectors of my work. I am thankful that my work has traveled to different parts of the U.S and Europe. I have done a fair amount of donating work to worthy causes particularly auctions that benefit childrens' causes globally, and wish to continue painting as long as I live. I would like to work on more public and corporate art commissions, maybe liven up buildings and offices, venues that people visit every day to provide an example".

Comments:
Saatchi Online: A message from Charles Saactchi:
On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 9:39 PM, Charles wrote:
Hello,
Very happy to see your work on the gallery site.
I am thrilled that the standard is so high from such a variety of artists such as yourself, and hope it will be interesting to gallery owners, exhibition curators and collectors to see such diverse work.
All my best,
CCharles Saatchi
visit saatchi-gallery.co.uk

Biography: Chitra Ramanathan's body of predominantly large-scale mixed media paintings are portrayed through intense colors and multiple layers of textures that interact with light to "challenge the boundaries of their two-dimensional surfaces" as an art collector described them. Her work is inspired by the short-lived beauty of garden blooms and cyclical change in seasons, characteristics that the artist compares with the continually evolving, ephemeral, fleeting and enticingly beautiful happiness' "formless form": a phrase she has coined to describe her concept. Hints of abstract figures and circles present in her paintings signify the cosmic cycle of human life: trying times followed by happy phases in a positive sense, and of life and rebirth influenced by her roots from India.

Her paintings on varied mediums such as anodized aluminum, Plexiglas, linen and canvas, have been described as "tactile works that resonate with a quiet harmony" and "Simply luxurious" by Manhattan Arts, New York.

To quote the University of Illinois School of Art and Design, "Chitra's paintings exemplify her love of nature as well as the subjectivity of each individual's unique pursuit of happiness. Her painting procedure often entails making mental notes of a scene in nature, including the lighting, colors, and textures. She then uses these impressions in her studio to replicate the subject matter in an abstracted form, using rich physical textures, intense colors, and varied media".

Several of her paintings have been acquired by individual as well as corporate collections including educational institutions around the and in Europe.

During an interview with artist Chitra Ramanathan by the Indianapolis Star newspaper's Fishers|Geist Magazine for the June-July 2007 issue, the artist reflected, "I feel fortunate that my work has got accepted so favorably-people who come across my paintings on various web sites have been writing to me, and many of them have become collectors of my work. I have also done a fair amount of donating work to worthy causes particularly auctions to benefit children's causes globally. I wish to continue painting as long as I live, and would like to work on more public and corporate art commissions, maybe liven up buildings and offices that people see every day to provide an example".

Chitra accepts public arts commissions including art direction and set construction/set design assignments.

Site-specific public art projects include creating a permanent wall mural for children, measuring 13.8 feet wide and 4 feet high in the front lobby of Crooked Creek Elementary School, Marion County, Indianapolis, completed in April 2008. This commission was made possible by a grant to the school by the Washington Township School Foundation, Indiana.

A 2004 site-specific public art commission was awarded by MGM Mirage upon coming across two earlier paintings by the artist, based upon which she created a pair of signed paintings each measuring 4 feet x 6 feet on permanent display inside the Bellagio Conservatory indoor botanical garden, Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas

Styles: Acrylic, Aluminum, Classes & Workshops, Collage, Commission Work, Drawing, Film Arts, Fresco, Mixed Media, Multi-Cultural, Oil, Painter: Decorative, Plein Air, Portraiture, Printmaker: silk, wood, litho., Public Art, Sculpture, Watercolor

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