| Shipra Bhattacharya |
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Distinguished art critic Manasij Majumdar writes of the artist’s work, “…Shipra Bhattacharya has achieved over the years a solid and steady reputation as an artist, specially since women have appeared at the center of her thematic frame in a couple of series of compulsive images…What is striking about them… is the fact that her women related imagery exudes no sexist outlook, explores no women’s issues… (they) are more like explicit expressions of femininity, evoked as they are, generally with no specific social identity or landscape locale, and are often images of celebration and fulfillment… What is fore-grounded is not the social context though it is there in the fringe as a frame. Highlighted are the inward contours of a woman’s reality, woman in love, her passions and aspirations, her discontent and desire, her life in a domestic ambience, interior settings and outward environs, her relationships with men and other women and even her possible role in the scheme of things when she assumes a fantasy persona in her own or a man’s mythical imagination…
Marked by well-honed and meticulous execution and at the same time by an unstudied formal naivete, her canvases have an irresistible visual draw, both for their charming figurative content and fascinating scheme of colours. The finer points of her paintings are definitely her smooth brushwork; figuration of unforced simplicity, of no edgy angular realism or dramatic chiaroscuro; the tonal glows of complementary hues finished on top with a soft sensuous gleam…But this is no skin deep surface appeal of her art because the formal, tonal and technical richness of her canvases is an indispensable part of the discourse she has developed for herself to treat… the central focus”
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About the Artist
Born: 1954 Kolkata
Art Education: 1977 Govt. College of Art & Crafts Kolkata; 1980 Fine Arts at the College of Visual Arts under the guidance of Suvaprasanna
Selected Exhibitions & Participation
International (Group)
• 2006 Singapore, Gallery Art Positive; Singapore Gallery Art Resource Trust; ‘Art Axix’ Lahore organized Art Alive Gallery
• 2005 Reflections Art Gallery Hong Kong
• 2004 MP Birla Millenium Art Gallery London organized Art Pilgrim; Asian Art Fair Singapore org. Gallery Sumukha; ‘Scenes from a Voyage’ org. Art Voyage with Art Pilgrim; ‘Parbon 2004’ Sheraton Hotel Dhaka; Jkarta Indonesia org. Gallery Sanskriti
• 2003 ‘Indian Springs’ Hong Kong org. Maya Puri; Intex Gallery Dubai
• 2002 ‘Art Space’ Barn Galleries Aston Henley on Thames UK.; Dubai org. Ambica Beri; Sarala Art Gallery Singapore
• 2001 ‘Art With Heart’ org. CRY Dubai
• 2000 ‘Faces’ Design Art Jumeirah Dubai; APLA Les Ateliers Dupere Lachaise Associes Paris, org. Gandhara Art Gallery Kolkata
• 1998 ‘Indian Contemporary Women’ Hong Kong
• 1997 ‘Bengal Show’ Singapore org. Apparao Gallery; ‘Outcome’ Singapore/Hong Kong
• 1996 ‘Within the Frame’ N. York
• 1994 ‘The Indian Context’ Lee Arthur Studio N. York
• 1993 Kufa Gallery London
• 1992 ‘To Encounter the Other’ Kassel Germany
• 1984 Stockholm Sweden
• 1983 Stuttgart, W. Germany
National
Solo
• 2006 ‘EVEa’ Indi Habitat Centre N. Delhi, organized Gallery Sanskriti
• 2005 Gallery Sanskriti, Kolkata
• 2004 ‘Desire’, Gallery Sumukha Bangalore
• 2003 Dubai; ‘Desire’ India Habitat Center, N. Delhi, organized Gallery Sanskriti
• 2002 Birla Academy of Artn& Culture, Kolkata; ‘Art & Fashion’ by ABN-AMRO Bank at Dubai, Organized Creations Arts
• 1997 Sridharani Art Gallery N. Delhi
• 1997 Birla Academy Kolkata
• 1995 Apparao Gallery Madras
• 1993 The Gallery Madras
• 1989 Grindlays Art Gallery Madras
• 1988 Tagore Art Gallery Kolkata
Group
• 2006 Sanskriti Art Gallery org. Art Space India; Annual Exhibition Birla Academy Kolkata; Bengal Chromosome (artists from India and Bangladesh) Academy of Fine Arts Kolkata org. Artists Circle; Taj Krishna Hyderabad; Harmony Art Show org. Tina Ambani; Maurya Sheraton Hotel N. Delhi; ‘Jagriti’ at Saurav’s org. GMB Films Pvt. Ltd.
• 2005 Annual Show Birla Academy Kolkata; ‘Young Bengal Lalit Kala Akademi org. Birla Academy; ‘10th Harmony Show 2005’ org. Reliance Industries Mumbai;’2005 India-Korea Contemporary Art’ India Habitat Center N. Delhi; ‘Harvest 2005’ org. Arushi Arts N. Delhi; Gallery Sanskriti Kolkata; ‘Feminine Mystique’ by Art & Soul Mumbai; ‘Devotion’ inDIA habitat Center N. Delhi; ‘Banglar Mati Banglar Jal’ Academy of Fine Arts & Aryan Art Gallery N. Delhi; ‘40th Anniversary Year’ Artworld Chennai; ‘She’ Art N Soul Mumbai
• 2004 ‘Art of Bengal’ org. Habiart Foundation; ‘Dhaara’, Academy of Fine Arts presented Aryan Art Gallery; ‘Celebration of Women by Women Artists’ on Amrita Sher Gil at ICCR N. Delhi; ‘Tales of Two Cities’ Birla Academy Kolkata; ‘Passion’ Gandhara Art Gallery Kolkata; ‘Summer 2004’ Palette Art Gallery N. Delhi; Habiart Foundation Bangalore
• 2003 ‘Only Concert’ org. Hyatt Regency & Art Alive Gallery N. Delhi; ‘The 8th Harmony Show’ org. Reliance industries Mumbai; ‘Harvest 2003’ org. Payal Gupta N. Delhi; ‘Kite – a Celebration of Freedom’ India Habitat Center N. Delhi org. Dhoomimal Art Centre; ‘6th Anniversary Show’ Artworld Chennai
• 2002 Chitrakoot Art Gallery Kolkata; Art Alive Gallery N. Delhi; ‘Ma’ at India Habitat Center, org. Art Indus, N. Delhi; ‘Indian Contemporary ART’ Arushi Arts N. Delhi; Surya Gallery Hyderabad
• 2001 ‘Guess Who Painted It?’ Art Today N. Delhi; ‘Bengal Show’ Bangalore and Mumbai; Galleria Gallery N. Delhi; Gallerie 88 Kolkata
• 2000 ‘women’ Galeria Mumbai; ‘Artistree’ Gallery Pegasus N. Delhi; ‘Two for Two Thousand’ Art Today Gallery N. Delhi; ‘The Millenium’ Taj Bengal Kolkata
• 1999 ‘Art for Spastics’ Taj Coromandel Chennai; ‘Contemporary Woks of Bengal Artists Dhaka Bangladesh; ‘Small Formal Works’ Art Today N. Delhi; ‘art & Cinema’ Arushi Arts N. Delhi; ‘Recent Work by Five Painters’ Gallery Sumukha Bangalore
• 1998 ‘Devi’ Art Indus N. Delhi; ‘1st Group Show of Fine Arts Company’ Mumbai; Gandhara Art Gallery Bangalore; Triveni Gallery N. Delhi
• 1997’Diwali Show’, Art Today Gallery N. Delhi; ‘A Tribute to Mother Theresa’ Art Indus N. Delhi; ‘Contemporary Art of Bengal’ with Calcutta Metropolitan Festival of Art
• 1996 Birla Academy Kolkata
• 1995 ‘People and Faces’ Art Today Gallery N. Delhi;’Exhibition by the People for Animals” N. Delhi
• 1994 ‘New Generation Exhibition’ Birla Academy Kolkata; ;In Search of Time and Identity’ Birla Academy Kolkata & Rabindra Bhavan N. Delhi
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