Chitra Ramanathan

Artist's Statement
My series of widely acquired and commissioned paintings since 1999, have since been progressively inspired by sensory emotions such as joy/happiness, music, films, fantasy, dreams, the colors of seasons, and the colorful festivals and costumes characteristic of my native India, gardens and continually evolving seasons. I generally choose acrylic paint as main medium, often accompanied by permanent texture materials such oriental papers, gold leaf, sand, and fibers to create mixed media. Commissions welcome.

Overall, my ongoing thematic body of paintings compare the mental emotion of happiness as a “visual entity” and defining happiness as “fleeting and ephemeral” to short-lived garden blooms and continually evolving seasons. The colorfulness and myriad collaged materials that I often employ intend to evoke joy in my viewers, and the illusion of the imagery extending beyond the confines of their two-dimensional surfaces is exciting! My concept alludes to trying phases followed by positive and happy periods in human life as with continually changing and evolving seasons in nature.

Some of my commissions in recent years by private and business clients include a three-paneled painting for the CEO of Biaggis Resta...

2024:

Recipient of the International Tagore Award for "Outstanding Contribution in the field of Painting" conferred by the Dawn Research and Development Council of India in and the Artist of the Year Award by the Circle Foundation for the Arts, France in February 2024.

Chitra Ramanathan received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting with honors in 1993, and M.B.A in 1997 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her career began with a solo exhibit of her student work at the ARC Gallery, Chicago in 1994 followed by solo and group show invitations by different galleries on Broadway, New York City from 1995. Noticed by critics including features in Manhattan Arts Magazine in 1995, and other NY publications, her work began to be acquired online by 1999. Several of her originals are with private and business collections, and installations based on her originals such as a pair of large paintings commissioned by MGM Resorts International installed in the Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas in 2004, a mural commissioned and painted in the lobby an elementary school in 2008, five large paintings created for the Arts Council of Indianapolis that were exhibited in Chase Towers building in downtown Indianapolis in 2006, and in recen...

EXHIBITIONS, COMMISSIONS, PUBLIC ART REGISTRY SELECTIONS

Public Art Registry: City of San Antonio 2024, Tucson and Southern Arizona 2023.

2024, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023:

Various exhibits in the Atlanta area.

• Commission completed for private client, President Ulliman Shulte Construction LLC, Dayton, Ohio: Pair of paintings, specified sizes each 84 inches (H) X 40 inches (W), completed in August 2020.

• Selection to pre-qualified Artist Pool, City of Palo Alto California Public Art Commission, 2019/2020.


• Publication, Art Guide Mag Print and Online Artist Directory 2020.

• 5 acquired original paintings within the US and Canada during 2020.

• Voluntary: Artist Member, Americans for the Arts, Ongoing.


2019 / 2018:

• Inclusion: Public Artist Roster, The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona since November 15, 2018, ongoing.
• Loan Exhibit, Orlando Florida Arts and Cultural Affairs, at the Board of County Commissioner’s Chambers, Orlando, Florida: October 2018-Februry 14, 2019

ACADEMIC UPDATES:

• Painting instructor and member, Norcross Gallery and Studios, Norcross GA: 2020 to present, ongoing.
• Teaching Faculty, Art School of the Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach Florida: 2010-2018.
• Art Center Faculty, I...