Chandan Chowdhury

Chandan Chowdhury is an expressive artist whose contemporary folk paintings celebrate rustic simplicity and pastoral life. His works are largely figurative, rarely veering toward still life, and quintessentially employ striking colours – a gamut of giddy yellows, dusky greys, dulcet blues, swarthy browns, luminous reds and vivid greens grace his canvases. Chowdhury’s works often blend realistic and stylised elements to great effect, fluidly integrating colour, figures, geometrical shapes and bold lines in order to create an interconnected web that forms a single whole. Apart from his works that deal with the unaffected beauty of simple rural folk and their surroundings, Chowdhury is also fascinated with religious imagery – from deities to devotees. His works often feature young Brahmin boys and men, rendered in great detail, with Chowdhury paying special attention to the material traces of their religious identities. Taking from traditional Hindu iconography, but employing his own unique method, he also renders in his own style, a multitude of Ganeshas - a deity he is particularly drawn to, along with others such as Durga and Krishna.