Do women paint differently from men? This would certainly appear to be so, even though female Indian artists have not shied away from representing the female body. The difference lies in their ability to turn the body into a representation of their arguably feminist perspective: a space for interrogation into societal malaise. They are therefore more autobiographical than their male peers, their work arising out of the intimacy of their surroundings and their lives. They are both conspirators and guardians of the common secrets of the great sorority, found evidently in Chaitali De Chanda’s oeuvre.
Chaitali De Chanda’s art is rooted in the direct observation of the world around her, which she transforms to express her personal inner vision. Her commitment to painting daily scenes of Indian village life and semi-urban scenes remains a life-long passion, depicting in her perception the best aspects of her homeland. To capture the essence of each situation, place, or mood in time, she developed and continually replayed a group of subjects, such as the fields and the rural people, to unlock the dynamic energy of the village idyll.
Each study and painting is born out of a localised inspiration, and the result is a painting charged with dynamic energy and a distinct rhythm full of emotional intensity—a recording of the social emotions of the period in tune with the painter’s own feelings and sentiments. Within that matrix is an extremely sensitive artist, one who felt deeply for the rural folk who were the unsung heroes of her tapestry of vision.
Living in a crowded city, one is often caught up in a world of contradictions—while one absorbs the high energy, thrives in its creative output, and lives through a myriad of experiences, its claustrophobic spaces and polluted environment carry out an onslaught on the senses just as its social hypocrisies and corrupt practices benumb the mind. Throughout Chaitali’s eventful life, her strong fascination with her natural surroundings and the natural world at large played an equally important role in shaping her sensibilities. Reflective of her wide-ranging imagination and sensibility, the artist explores nature and its motifs, drawing heavily from folklore, the ancient Indian epics, the everyday life of the rural folk, and the landscape around her in order to understand man’s place in the cosmic cycle of life and to celebrate the beauty of the elements as well as the transformative power of nature.
Many of her paintings, perhaps unconsciously, are about conversations. Her protagonists whisper gossip and speculation into willing and unwilling ears—be it a person or a bird. She appears to ask: do humans and animals share their responses to the environment and to one another’s presence? Her art is a product of observation, an observation of life lived around herself. As a sensitive artist who delights in the play of form and colour, she invests her paintings with the qualities of dignity, love, and affection.
It is from these conundrums that her art offers an escape. In the quiet seclusion of her studio, the artist retreats into another world, an idyllic one, familiar to her childhood days spent in quietude. It is a world of myth and magic, of tranquil home environs. It is a world conjured up from fragmented memories of a forgotten way of life, of fables and folk tales, village deities and religious rituals, colourful festivals and fairs—when life was slower and had a certain grace. It is a world that is remembered fondly, revisited, and recreated by her in her paintings. Her work is primarily visual, where the canvas is treated as a given space enclosed by a frame. The interaction between what fills that space and the binding lines of the frame forms the fundamental tension in each painting.
The eye is led by movements (as of line or colour) that flow, swell, grow, and then are abruptly broken by a deliberately placed interruption or distortion. This technique also helps maintain the sense of flux and tension the viewer feels. Chaitali’s style is swift and bold with a penchant for measured meticulousness. The effect is that of spontaneous energy along with an ordered serenity; of tender lyricism and contained attack.
— Vinayak Pasricha
