Famous painter Arindam Chatterjee, who is based in Kolkata, is well-known for his extremely experimental and critical works that highlight our precarious existence in an era of senseless violence, anomie, arbitrary authoritarian domination, and repression. His vast body of works, which were mostly completed between 2017 and 2023 and have never been displayed before, is on display at Kolkata Centre For Creativity.

After completing his studies in art at Santiniketan and Kolkata, Chatterjee started as a prominent abstract painter. He eventually gave up this style of work in 2007 and began focusing more on figurative painting. The paintings exhibit a highly experimental yet instantly identifiable style that combines aspects of forceful realism with expressive abstraction. In the discourse of modern art history, he is associated with the group of writers, poets, and painters who attempt to portray the actual faces of civilization—which ultimately becomes barbarous—in a highly critical-poetic manner by depicting cruel facts, pictures, and emotions. His work, which is primarily on paper, explores non-traditional, non-functionalist material experimentation and medium use. It also touches on the idea of the naked life and Schimittan’s concept of emergency and condition of exception to some level.

The title of the exhibition is derived from Jibananda Das’s well-known poem, Bodh. Chatterjee is a passionate reader, and his reading of modernist Bengali poets and writers like Utpal Kumar Basu, Jibanananda Das, Binoy Majumdar, and Dostoveksky has greatly influenced his aesthetic philosophy. The title alludes to the indeterminacy and constant flux of meaning at the core of his output.

The display located on Emami Art‘s fifth level will remain open until March 23, 2024.

Priyanka Dutta