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“As a painter, I react to lines. Lines are very meaningful to a painter…Here a line is a word or a stroke, very vital, it conveys something. These lines take me to a different thought process. I paint a part of the brain and then a huge beetle, my imagination goes there. Our thoughts are eaten by so many counter thoughts, so many insects!” (rpt. in Swapna Vora, Herstory: Palimpsests of the Maps of Memory, Asianart.com, August 2007, accessed May... “As a painter, I react to lines. Lines are very meaningful to a painter…Here a line is a word or a stroke, very vital, it conveys something. These lines take me to a different thought process. I paint a part of the brain and then a huge beetle, my imagination goes there. Our thoughts are eaten by so many counter thoughts, so many insects!” (rpt. in Swapna Vora, Herstory: Palimpsests of the Maps of Memory, Asianart.com, August 2007, accessed May 2008).

Jayashree Chakravarty’s complex canvases can be likened unto dense maps built of intricate lines and figures. They document her journeys, experiences, innermost thoughts and fears. When viewed from a distance, these multilayered representations of her mind appear in a jumbled state of panic. However, on closer examination, the figures in her works are still, silent – introspective and indifferent to the chaos of lines around them.

Educated at Santiniketan, the Faculty of Fine Arts of M.S. University, Baroda, and at the Ecole d’Art in Aix-en-Provence, the artist’s diverse academic background has played an important role in determining her unique aesthetic. Chakravarty works simultaneously on many canvases, explaining, “I use layers and then leave them alone to dry and then return as memories of my journey and stories arise again” (Ibid.).

In this untitled canvas, completed in 2003, the artist emphasizes cooler shades of blue and green in her palette, and has limited the use of her signature slate-grey, ochre and sepia tones. The camaraderie shared between the plant, animal and human kingdom is uncanny. In the artist’s opinion, it is “…ultimately nature [that] will heal us humans. Underneath this, my meaning is we are going away from nature, too far, much too far. Nature takes away tension, all illness” (Ibid.). Here, the botanical and entomological worlds bear silent witness to the unspoken bond that unites the two figures who frame the piece on left and right. Their wordless exchange charges the scene with a palpable energy, carried in each textured image that dissolves and re-emerges within and around them in the swirling lines of the grey-blue mist of memories.

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