Lot 281: Jayashree Chakravarty (B. 1956)

Untitled
Signed and dated at lower right: Jayashree 94; signed and dated on reverse
Oil on canvas
42 x 41 1/4 in. (106.5 x 104.8 cm)

During the first half of the 1990's, Jayashree Chakravarty lived and worked in France. In this work, completed in 1994, we see the re-emergence of the human figure, which had been absent during her earlier periods of landscape painting. However, Chakravarty's previous reliance on naturalism has been supplanted by a patterned and androgynous figure. Suggestions of flowers, trees, houses, castles and forts surface from textured layers of paint and the artist skillfully reveals and conceals forms with a single stroke of the paintbrush. In addition to the main image, the surface is covered with intricate markings - indications of cartography, jagged lines of a heart monitor, botanical drawings, road signs, calligraphy, and graffiti - all held in a delicate balance.