JAYASHREE CHAKRAVARTY

Born 1956 in Khowai, Tripura, India.
Lives and works in Kolkata, India.

In a career spanning over three decades, Jayashree Chakravarty has placed environmentalism at the core of her concerns. Underscoring the grave risk that human encroachment and rapid urbanization pose to natural habitats, the artist draws from her lived experiences in the rapidly urbanizing suburb of Kolkata that she calls home. Chakravarty reminds us that the earth is approaching a precarious edge where the threat of daily damage has taken on precipitous dimensions.

In Chakravarty’s recent artworks, she presents a repository of her personal collection of twigs, leaves, flowers, seeds, and other natural detritus. When illuminated from behind, they take on the quality of amber, evincing a strategy of preservation and veneration as a way to combat the inevitable sense of loss embodied by the materials. The assembly of vegetal substances in dense layers of paper suggests both the passage of time and nature’s regenerative potential. Through poetic evocations, Chakravarty's practice highlights the need for environmental healing and resurrection.